Monday, January 24, 2011

Toronto Life Fashion Lessons: Working at Starbucks and the Daily Commute

I started work at Starbucks today and it was quite enjoyable, I must say, I haven’t worked, like, a real job since I worked at Fabricland 3 years ago so this is all kind of new for me. Starbucks is a pretty neat company though (I learned after reading about the company for four hours today.) You get lots of perks for working there and the coffee is awesome, so who could complain? I’m mostly excited to see how many ways I can interpret the dress code while staying within the rules of employment.




- Black or White solid shirt with a collar

- Black or tan solid dress pants

- Black skirt or shorts no more than 10cm above the knee

- Matching black socks/tights

- Brown or black solid belt

I wonder what I can do with this to make it more interesting....? ;)

I felt entirely out of place fashion-wise when I found myself walking under the SunLife Financial Building on King St @ University where all the people are perfectly pressed and steamed in their suits, ties and high wasted straight skirts. I had my brown military coat on over the hand knitted cream coloured sweater my mom made me. Though I love those two items of clothing in almost any other scenario, in this situation, I felt like the homeless dude screaming about Jesus up the stairs on the corner. Strange.

I have a choice of coats. I have my brown coat I mentioned above, and my long black double breasted size XS beauty that I can’t wear when it’s really cold because it’s too tiny to wear anything underneath it. But I would if it were about 10 degrees warmer outside. My Elements of Design professor says it’s so utterly boring in Toronto in the winter time because everyone in the city wears a black coat. I try to wear brown and I immediately understand why.

Until next time,

VPH