Olive Peplum and Cream Trouser Set

The senior manager problem: too senior for the entry level wardrobe, not senior enough yet to wear the partner's gravitas. The wardrobe lives in that exact gap for a decade, and most women dress around it by buying more, not by building better.

So we built her this. Olive V neck peplum, long sleeves, a side gather that softens without flattening, the colour deep enough to read as serious and warm enough to read as her. Cream wide leg trousers because she wanted the trousers to do the height work for her, which is what wide leg trousers actually do when they are cut properly and pressed sharp.

The look is fluent corporate Lagos in a colour palette that lets her be the person, not the role. She wears it on the days she is presenting to the leadership team but is not on the agenda herself, which is the kind of day a senior manager spends most of her week in. She told me, six weeks after pickup, that her director had stopped asking her to take notes.