Talbots Is Celebrating the 'Ladylike' Badassery of Totally Normal Women

And we can still clean house

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Have you ever walked into a Talbots?

My personal feeling has always been that it’s for some nondescript older woman, though who she is (a mom?) and what she does (work in an office…?) remains unclear. All we know is, she wears an awful lot of herringbone, usually in red.

Young women seeking their starter “brand” for grownup life pay attention to what retailers are trying to convey, which is why ads make such good shorthand. But we’ve rarely seen a Talbots ad, leaving us only with our impressions of its lackluster storefronts—which perhaps explains that one time, 20 years ago, when Arnold tried clarifying who

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