Looking Good!
By Pamelagrace Beatty
There are many reasons for not buying new clothes: Didn’t work during the pandemic, retired and on a “fixed” income, new spending plan that doesn’t include buying the latest fashions, or several others. Whatever is stopping you from buying that outfit you saw in the store, or on a friend, here are some ideas for how to get a new wardrobe without going to a designer store, or even Macy’s!
Shopping in your Closet
That’s right. Go shopping in your closet and have some fun. Fun? Yep, fun. If you are like me, there are clothes in your closet you haven’t worn in a while, maybe even in a long while. You may have good reason (because they are two sizes smaller, but that’s another story). Perhaps they are dressy, and you haven’t gone out anywhere that would require dressing up. Maybe they are business clothes, and you haven’t needed them for the past two years because of you-know-what. Maybe you have been living in sweatpants and T-shirts while you work from home, and you have become used to the comfort and ease of just slipping into them to make coffee and work on your computer.
Whatever your reason for not dressing nicely (No, sweat clothes do not count as “dressing” in my book!!! This is your Fashionista speaking!), now that things are beginning to turn around and more stores, restaurants, pubs and workplaces are calling us to come back to them, you need a new look. Didn’t know that did you? But you may not have the money for a new wardrobe. Well, you don’t need money right away because – wait for it – you can shop in your closet!
“Uh huh,” you might be thinking. “How do I shop in my closet? I know what’s in there. Those clothes are boring, or I don’t like them anymore.” This is where the fun starts. Examining clothes you used to wear, before we all retired to the dining table to work on our computers, and mixing them up, is a cool way to design new looks! Way fun! This is a great opportunity to use your imagination, your creativity. Many of us tend to go on automatic when we dress because who wants to spend hours trying to figure out what goes with what? We get a combo that works, and we keep working it. We always wear the blue V-neck sweater with the dark blue pants. The point is, we wear what we are used to wearing so we don’t have to think. It takes time to figure out what looks good with what, on you. So, it is easier to stay with what we know works. But that’s why our clothes, which may still be nice, and even fit, become boring.
The answer to “How do I shop in my closet” is in the question. Shop in your closet. Get off automatic and try the blue V-neck with a different bottom, maybe a skirt or a different color of pants. Add a scarf, different jewelry, different shoes, different jacket. Women have far more choices than men, but men, you can be a bit more adventurous with color and style mixes. One man I know loves colorful, interesting sock patterns and fancy shoes, from athletic shoes to Cap Toe Oxfords. He will wear his cool shoes with his sweat clothes or wear his nice athletic shoes with his sports jacket and pants. And he always has these interesting socks. Men, you may not get to have as much fun re-engineering your wardrobe as women do, but you can still get creative with how you present.
Get creative and mix and match. It is so invigorating to break out of habit and try something different, especially when you don’t have to pay for it, ‘cause it was at your fingertips all along.
Sometimes it’s fun to break the rules, whatever rules you are going by. “Never wear stripes and plaids” was a rule when I was growing up. “Don’t mix pink and red.” “No white shoes in the winter.”
Now the clothing designers do it all the time! They may have some rules around the mixing of patterns, like they have to have some of the same the colors in them. Or one pattern is dominant and the other supports it. There is a skill and even an art to mixing. It’s not like the bad dresser on the golf course who is apparently unaware of pattern design and flow! However, these rules for the pattern mixing are not consistent. I have analyzed them and not found a common thread (pun intended). If pattern mixing is more than you want to take on, then just stick with moving your tops and bottoms around.
DIY
This is more for the women than the men. If you have a sewing machine, you have even more capacity to change what you have in your closet. You can re-engineer your pants, cut off your skirts, eliminate the sleeves and neckline in a T-shirt. I took two big turtleneck sweaters, cut them both off at the waist, made a neck wrap for one sweater and fingerless gloves with the scraps from the other. The sweaters were so big I looked like a walking purple pumpkin. I don’t know what possessed me when I bought them. But I love them now that I’ve changed them up.
Another DIY favorite of mine, is changing jeans into jean skirts and bell bottoms. Here I step beyond my closet and visit my favorite used clothing store. When I was younger, and working fulltime, I would never have bought anything from a used clothing store. I was a fashion snob. Now, I’m not so high and mighty, and my spending plan only allows for so much to be spent on fashion. Plus, when I decided to reshape my regular straight leg jeans into bellbottoms, I went to the fabric store and discovered just to buy swatches for the jean bell bottom would cost three times as much as one whole pair of jeans at Value Village. I have loved Value Village ever since, especially because if my creative endeavor is a flop, I have only spent $10 or less.
Used clothing stores are also inexpensive ways to extend what’s in your closet. Of course, make sure you wash the clothes before you wear them. I recently heard these stores don’t clean or wash the clothes. I guess not, if they are selling them at such low prices.
If you have money in your budget for buying new clothes, a still relevant fashion rule is to always buy something that goes with what you already have in your closet. Some of my friends have actually bought items that didn’t match anything they had, so they were one-of-a-kind outfits that could only be worn as is. Some have bought outfits to match a new pair of shoes or jewelry. If you want to spend your money that way, cool. If, however, you want to spend it elsewhere, then buying clothes that help extend your wardrobe, and keep it looking fresh and up-to-date, is a better idea.
Just for the Fashionistas
For those who are as avid about dressing as I am, I have found a wonderful way to dress creatively, but not have to spend a lot of time regularly dreaming up new ways to wear my clothes. When I buy new pieces, I try them on with everything I think they might go with. When I find a combination I like, I take a photo of it in my bathroom mirror. I keep the pics in a file on my phone. Then, when that special occasion comes up, or even the ordinary one, but I want an idea of what to wear, I look at my file photos. You might think this is a bit excessive, but I have tried getting creative at the last minute, and discovered the idea I had for recombining the clothing was awful. I had to think again and was wasting precious time. So, I have found having a picture of what works is very helpful.
This may sound like “much ado about nothing,” but I see playing with fashion as exactly that – play. I encourage you to do the same. It’s fun, and we all could use more healthy fun in our lives.
