Shop Your Closet – Before you go shopping for newer goodies for your closet, you might want to shop your own closet for things you might need for the season to prevent yourself from shelling out money on impulsive purchases. Keeping trends and seasons in mind, dig for pieces in your closet that you can wear and keep them where you can see them so you can use them as a base for making your shopping list for the new season. Try to find new pieces that go with the existing pieces in your wardrobe.

 

Trading Pieces – Share your closet with your friends, sisters and cousins. You’ll feel like you have a bigger closet and more options to choose from. It might make styling aspect fun and also inject a mysterious side to your personality drawn from the unique taste of trading partners. 

 

 

Go Classic – Stay classic in a world gone plastic. Go for the 80 / 20 rule. Buy more high-quality timeless classics and a few affordable trends to energize your wardrobe for a fresh twist. Investing in high quality timeless classics might reduce your closet spending on a long term basis. This concept works great with accessories such as hats, gloves, bags, jewelry, watches, belts, sunglasses etc., because they don’t wear out as easily as clothes. Go for classic pieces such as trench coats, military jackets, leopard print pieces and breton tops in basic or neutral colors such as navy, blacks, whites and nudes. If you are good at maintaining things, you might be able to pass it down to your daughters or someone in the family. Here is a list of collectable classics to start building your classic wardrobe. 

 

Vintage View – Shop at flea markets or vintage stores. Websites such as Threadflip can help turn your old-favorites that you don’t use anymore into cash and shop for some amazing pre-owned / pre-loved fashion. You can also probably trade old-pieces with your friends and family. 

 

Wash Wise – There are tons of tips online for reducing the need for frequent laundry or dry cleaning from steaming to using vodka sprays ( 1 part vodka + 2 parts water in a spray bottle). Hand washing with gentle eco-friendly detergent and hang-dry can make clothes last longer.


Recycle and Reuse –  Before throwing away anything, see if your can turn them into something useful for reuse such as cleaning rags. If it’s totally out of shape then you might want to consider recycling. H & M stores now have bins for recycling clothes and they accept any brands in any condition. Read about their recyling program here. 

 

Creative Spirit – It helps to see fashion as a theraputic and inspiring art like painting, where you don’t have to buy everything you see. With a little creativity and imagination, you can be as creative and resourceful as Scarlet was in the movie “Gone with the wind” and might be able to turn even curtains into a desirable dress. Try modifying the pieces in your closet by using painting or dip dying techniques, adding peplums or appliqués, layering edges with color-blocked or sheer pieces, adding leather sleeves, changing buttons etc. to give them a fresh creative spin. If you can make these modifications detachable then you can keep the versatility of the original pieces. 

Hope these ideas inspire you to broaden your closets, get creative and stay uniquely stylish while being gentle on your wallets and the planet. Do you have any bright ideas or tips to green our closets?  


“Scoot up to the attic and get Ma’s old box of dress patterns, Mammy. You’re going to make me a new dress.” 
– Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind


xx
Heel in Mint