First-- Laurie, sorry to hear about the co-workers. Hopefully they meant well. I work in a tiny organization with all women (except an occasional volunteer, intern, or board member) and sometimes some of the members of the staff will joke about how I dress. I like to think I'm one of the nicer dressed ladies, but they like to joke about the colors I wear (lots of grey, navy, black, olive green). I know 3 of them are well-meaning, but the fourth one not so much. I try not to let it bother me, but that might have been why I was extra self-conscious about an all-black outfit. My mother didn't help --- she stopped by while I was looking for something and her words were "unflattering" and "secretarial".
I will have to see if the SO has any pictures of the night. I left my camera at work (I was charging the battery, silly me). I would love to have a picture of the two of us anyway. The SO looked very studly-- I haven't seen him dressed up in awhile and he has recently lost over 20 pounds. We started off with a power outage at his house, so we took turns holding a flashlight so the other could finish getting ready.
The suggestions about red lippie and nails were great! (Angie, Torontogirl, Alasse) I wasn't able to follow through because I can't wear either to work, and was not confident enough to apply with no lights!
In the end, I gave myself a blowout, went for natural makeup with some eyeliner, wore my heirloom diamond earrings and a silver modern pendant that my hairdresser gave me the first week of december. I wore Viv's chelsea boots, my black slacks, and the black drape-front blouse (Deborah, Meredith and Caro, you were spot on!). I put Janet's leather jacket over the top, then my winter coat.
I ended up feeling very nice and was very comfortable and ready for anything-- no one made any comments about my outfit except for the SO (positive!). As I mentioned before, I was probably sensitive since I had been receiving negative feedback about being the grinch in black at my workplace --- the SO works with mainly men, and I don't know their spouses well except 2 of the ladies. Almost all of the ladies were in some sort of cocktail dress, but the function was less dressy than last year. We hung out mostly with the gentlemen. We had a nice dinner and some fun dancing and talking with friends and then went out on the town with some of the folks from the party. My rayon and opaque chiffon meant that I wasn't too hot indoors, but I was super glad for the leather jacket, covered legs, and boots with wool socks outside on a crisp Colorado night. Plus, it ended up being very practical. A dear friend of ours (that helped introduce the SO and I) lost her partner a little over a year and a half ago (another co-worker) and over imbibed. Good, flat shoes came in handy helping to get her home safe (I was the d.d. as always because of my medical stuff).
I was very touched by all the comiseration (Dimity, Dianthus, Jeanie, Thimbelina, Suz, Firecracker, Sarah, Joy, Anne, and Unfrumped) and all the wonderful suggestions here, it help a lot. I will keep a winter-appropriate dress and heels or warm separates outfit in mind for next year as I shop. Thank you all!
Will update with a pic when the SO gets home from the gym.