I'm in agreement with DaMa.
I like Lee comfort waist pants; I wear colored jeans often (black, grey, tan ... I want a pair of dark green). Just a couple weeks ago I bought a great pair that're tone-tone grey/black -- you'd have to touch them to realize they are jeans! If you wear them with a nice sweater and leather shoes, they look fine. Of course, as a high school teacher, I'm not required to be at the top of the dress code pinnacle.
And most of my work dresses are from Lands' End. When they're on clearance, the price is quite reasonable, and since I wear a small size, I can always find things at the end of the season. A Lands' End dress usually lasts me a decade, though I think I'm fairly easy on my clothes. I also come home and hang my dresses up to "air", which means I end up wearing them 2-3 times before I wash them, and I hang them to dry.
Since I live in the South, I have a lot of cardigan sweaters. They're real season-stretchers for me. Most of my shirts and dresses are short sleeves. I wear them as short sleeved shirts in the warm weather, then add a cardigan when it gets colder.