Not a Blogger: A Corporate Fashun Blog

Even though holiday decorations have been up in Chicago since before Halloween, we refused to fall into the holiday chaos until after Thanksgiving. Don’t get us wrong, we love the holiday season- holiday sweaters , tree decorating, cookie baking, and of course, the presents. Gift buying can be a daunting task. Who do you buy for? How much do you spend? How do you pick out a thoughtful gift that the recipient will want, and not something they politely thank you for and put in the box to donate to the good will? (Best case scenario here is they use it in a white elephant exchange.) Our gift guide won’t help you if your fiancée suddenly announces that he thinks you should cap your gifts for each other at $20 because “you have a wedding to pay for” a la Katie 2. (Seriously. WTF am I supposed to do with that?) But keep reading for some ideas to take some of the stress out of your shopping list. Significant Other   Buying for your significant other sucks for a million reas...

The Real Working Girls here at Not a Corporate Fashun Blog strive to provide our readers with helpful advice.  While we often will link to products that we haven’t purchased, those recommendations are thoroughly vetted prior to posting in order to ensure that we’re recommending products that we personally would use and/or buy.  However, there are instances where we’re just not comfortable recommending products based upon assumptions alone.  Today’s workout gear review is one of those instances.  Why? Because we’re discussing running underwear which, if you read Katie 2’s post about chafing , you know that proper running underwear is key to preventing chafing, especially when training for a long distance race.   Workout underwear is one of those products that you really don’t know how it’s going to perform until you try it.  This is why we came up with a pretty scientific method of trying different brands although our ultimate recommendation is based ...

One of the perks of working in banking is that we get all of the federal holidays off work (Columbus Day and Presidents' Day, we're looking at you) which is awesome.  One of the pitfalls of working in banking is that the Friday after Thanksgiving isn't an automatic day off, which is totally fine given that we've got 10 other federal holidays off.  Plus, most people take that Friday off anyway, so it's a great day to be at the office, especially if you need an excuse not to travel.   Hopefully you're out shopping while we're at work.  We realize that literally other fashun blog has some sort of breakdown of Black Friday sales to the point of being overwhelming.  You're not going to find that here because honestly, we're not super into Black Friday shopping anyway (too many crowds, the deals often aren't that good, the crowds).  However, we did want to point out a few of the sales that we will be shopping.  Here's our very curated list:  ...

If you live in a warmer climate, you may never understand the struggle of finding the right winter boots. Here in the Midwest, we need boots to wear when we have somewhere to go and won't be able to change our shoes and therefore need them to look presentable. We need a pair that will withstand a blizzard. And we need boots that we can wear after the blizzard when the snow is melting, the whole world is wet, and we are waiting for the next snow storm.  Those in more temperate zones may be able to get away with the basic bitch standard Hunter boot with a pair of wool liners. In fact, that was the #1 recommendation Katie 2 heard when she first moved to Chicago back in 2011. But for many reasons , that is just not a viable option, least of all being that her feet were frozen after just 10 minutes outside. Fear not! We are here to offer you plenty of options to fulfill all your winter booting needs.  Boots That You Can Pretend Aren't Sorel is the gold standard wh...

Congratulations! For whatever reason you’re hosting your first major holiday.  That’s exciting or terrifying or super stressful or something.  However you’re feeling, go you! You can do this, with our help of course.  On Friday we posted Part 1 of this guide written by Katie 1.  Now it’s time for Part 2 - Holiday Prep. Part 2 - Holiday Dinner Prep: So, you’ve taken our advice and planned your menu well in advance. It includes the perfect balance of pre-made, make ahead, and make day-of dishes. It’s traditional yet modern. That’s a huge chunk of your holiday preparation, so way to go.  Now you’re probably starting to freak out about all of the shit you have to do in order to make that menu happen.  It’s cool.  It happens.  This is a totally normal reaction. Part 2 of this guide helps you turn that meltdown into a seamless holiday experience.  As you know from Part 1 of this guide, in planning my menu for Thanksgiving, I took ti...

Congratulations! For whatever reason you’re hosting your first major holiday.  That’s exciting or terrifying or super stressful or something.  However you’re feeling, go you! You can do this, with our help of course.  As we’ve discussed in the past, Katie 1 is our resident Ina Garten and has a number of successful holiday hosting experiences under her belt (Hanukkah, a small thrown together Thanksgiving, Christmas) and has generously decided to share her wealth of knowledge with you, our dear readers in the form of this 2 part holiday hosting guide.  Hopefully it’s helpful. Part 1 of this guide will focus on menu prep.  Part 2 will focus on holiday prep (i.e. the cleaning, shopping, decorating, table setting, etc.). Part 1 - Holiday menu prep: I love food.  I love to cook.  When it comes to planning and prepping my holiday menus, most of my menu planning work is reducing the number of dishes I want to make.  Thus, I start planning...

Readers, today we offer you the start of yet another blog series. [Elizabeth believes that it is not really considered a series unless it occurs at a regular interval. Katie 2 disagrees. In reality, it probably doesn’t matter.] We want to talk to you about those basic pieces that we come back to again and again that are the foundation of any working girl’s wardrobe. We want to show you how to wear basic a bunch of ways and where to find them ( In this post Katie 2 said you should invest in classic pieces  so they last, and Katie 2 knows what she's talking about. When it comes to the pieces we feature in this series, we believe you should invest in the best you can afford.) Because we want to be realistic when it comes to the advice we give in this blog, you will see us use the basics we feature in this series again and again (take THAT stupid bitchy bloggers who wear something once because they got it c/o and then never wear it again/dumb bitches who wear something  super tr...