What does shopping your own wardrobe even mean? Let’s define that first!
Shopping your wardrobe is a coined phrase to describe creating outfits from clothing, shoes, and accessories that you already own. It can be a helpful way to make the most of your existing wardrobe without spending money on more stuff you may actually find you do not need. Talk about sustainability – that’s it right there! (Mother earth and your budget thanks you!)
If you are one of our followers that joined us during the Declutter Challenge by Femme Finance, you may now have an organised wardrobe, where what was once damaged is now mended, where it was once brimming and packed is now minimalistic, presenting you with clothing that fits and is season appropriate, ensuring your apparel is detoxed and ready to make you a fashionista dynamo!
Feel like this is something you want to try? Here are some tips and tricks to help you shop your wardrobe:
Get the app
There are a few apps out there that help you style outfits from items that you already own. Stylebook and XZ Closet are some of these. It helps you create a Virtual Closet on your phone, where you can curate outfits from your own items, helping you get organised as well as reminding you of what you already have for when you are online or in real life shopping, so you can extend on what you own instead of purchasing clothing and accessories that do not go with what you have. Head to wherever you get your apps, and you will find a bunch to scroll through.
Curate a Capsule We love a capsule wardrobe! We could scroll through those little infographics all day! This is a challenge you could set yourself – narrowing down your closet (if you haven’t already done so) can spur you into thinking creatively about what you wear each day. There are challenges like 30X30, where you prepare 30 outfits to wear each day for a month. There are also websites like Cladwell which can create a capsule wardrobe for you from your existing wardrobe, (they have a 7 day free trial on their app) Try their ‘find your Style’ quiz.
Window Shopping
Checking out what’s online or instore can help you decide what style you gravitate to, as well as help elevate what you have. Copying the styling tricks from your favourite brands is a great place for inspiration!
Photo Op
Did you put together a particularly cute outfit today? Take a photo and save it in a designated folder in your phone for when you have run out of ideas. Then there is Pinterest, our fave, our bestie! Create a folder in your profile of outfits that resonate with you, that suit your workplace and lifestyle and see if you can come up with similar combinations with the items you own.
What more can we say to you to give this a go? Here are some benefits to shopping your own wardrobe:
- It keeps costs down – more money to put to other places…Paris anyone?
- It prevents waste – more things means more to manage and let’s be honest it will turn to clutter. Check out our Declutter Challenge blogs if you want to know more about what clutter does to your brain! Weekend Four: The Tale of the little dust bunnies – (femmefinance.co.nz)
- It will help you enjoy what you have – seeing what you have when your wardrobe is smaller or at least more organised, you can get more creative.
- It can make you really look at what you have, and you appreciate your things more – changing things up can help us see what we really have, and we fall in love with what we own again.
- You get to really home in on your personal style and create a wardrobe that is satisfying and easy to select from – when you know what you have and have less, you’re not diving through endless amounts of clothes. Getting dressed won’t consume your time you be curating with it!
Well, we don’t know about you, but we are off to download a clothing app to make fun little outfit graphics and set ourselves up with some staple outfit ideas for the working week next week! Let us know what you think of this idea and happy “shopping”.