Working Woman: 6 TV Career Girls for Office Inspiration

June always makes me think of resumes, interviews, and first days at a new job. Call me crazy, but take away the smell of rain and my nose picks up the indelible scent of bond paper and 1x1 ID photos.

I guess it’s muscle memory. Just think back to your last year at college: most of us would take our final exams in February, graduate in March, and from April to May, if you were lucky, you’d immerse yourself in a long, leisurely summer vacation.

Then you look away for a second, and it’s June. Those days of waking up past noon and guzzling cheap booze at a friend’s house and whisking off to the coast whenever you felt like it come to a screeching halt.

Now, you get a job.

Here’s the bright side: unless you’re studying to be a doctor or a lawyer, you don’t have to go back to school. School’s out for good, as far as you’re concerned.

It’s the flipside you have to worry about. Welcome to the labor force, where your days start at 8:00 AM, your cubicle is your castle, and your chances of experiencing another real summer are about the same as you seeing a unicorn in the flesh.

And the clothes. I can only imagine how difficult it is to transition from one’s breezy, skin-baring staples to staid corporate attire. Personally, I can’t complain--girls who work in fashion don’t have dress codes, and none of my editors ever told me what to wear. There was simply an understanding that I would dress the part—and even the very definition of that was left to me.

Still, I feel for anyone who has ever had their workwear dictated to them and hated it. To put it bluntly, that sucks.

There is, of course, a silver lining.

Corporate attire done the same old way can be boring, restrictive, and robotic. But approached creatively, with equal parts good sense and good fashion, great workwear is the very image of a woman on the rise. After all, they don’t call it “power-dressing” for nothing.

Prepping for a big interview? Starting a new job? Or simply fresh out of workwear inspiration? Learn the tricks of TV’s most fabulous career girls—and climb that corporate ladder, go-getter style. It’s a woman’s, woman’s, woman’s world!

(Flashbox photo from Suits courtesy of USA Network)