There I was, swallowed up in a sea of them: endless creepy copies of each other, all mocking me with their slick outlines and pricey price-tags. After one whole hour of shopping, I’d come to a conclusion: suits are awful. They‘re itchy, sit strangely on my waistline, and make it hard for me to bend my arms. The collar is annoying and my legs are swallowed up in polyester fabric. And my list of complaints continued to grow, until I reckoned I must be allergic to all forms of suits. My day of shopping had turned into a perpetual headache.

Suit # 8: Too pricey. Suit #14: Really? I thought shoulder pads went out in the 80’s. And of course there was Suit #1093828592: I don’t think lime green is professional.

Why was I buying a suit?

Good question.

I was possessed by an urgent need to own something professional looking, because I’ve been told that in the real world they like it when you wear pants, not leggings. Being the the ignormamus-towards-everything-suit-related that I was, I was eager to listen to everyone. And of course, I was getting nowhere. According to the very kind, helpful lady at Nordstorms who filled up my dressing room with suits that cost more than a summer internship stipend, pants mean business: they’re professional and strong. Skirts are flirty and unprofessional, you know? At Macy’s, the salesperson graciously informed me that the hefty shoulder pads attached to a discounted suit made me look like an airline stewardess. Good to know. And apparently, skirts were the way to go.

I took a picture of my completely un-stewardess likeness in a suit and sent it to three people. The first told me my skirt was too big. The second told me that I shouldn’t be wearing those ankle socks with that outfit. The third gave me a thumbs up and told me to stop dawdling.

The point is, suit shopping is hard. Not as hard as the other things we all do, such as having the actual interview and doing the stuff that gets us there: classes, work, the whole package. I think some of the difficulty for me was the unfamiliarity of it all. Here I am; a college junior, and I haven’t the faintest clue where I can buy some panty-hose. In fact, I’ve never even had to think about panty-hose before.

What my suit-shopping debacle taught me is that it can be tricky navigating those lines of being a student and being a one day professional, particularly on a college budget. Luckily, there were people I trusted and backed me up: Valinda at CP8R, who gave me a list of stores to check out and lots of reassurance; my supervisor, whose opinion I completely trust; and a friend here at Scripps, who is the most professional student I‘ve even known (she has a business card with her face on it, which should tell you something). Their advice seemed obvious: find something you are comfortable in. It was surprisingly difficult to implement at first, but after an hour or so of getting nowhere I decided to focus in on that idea.

And so I got over myself. I realized that suits were in fact kind of fun. I ended up going to New York & Company and happened upon some good items. I realized that I’d been looking at suits that were too old for me, which is why I felt like a kid playing dress up. The suits I tried on at NY&C fit me much better and made me feel like I was not pretending. In the end, my haul was a suit jacket that actually fit my ridiculously long arms and a simple black skirt and pants. They are all machine-washable, which is awesome. I may or may not have forgotten to buy an undershirt—but hey, I can save that for next time. The tab was a substantial part of my paycheck and I won’t get to wear my new suit every day.  But it’s a good investment and I feel happy with my purchase.