Series: How To Shop Your Wardrobe

Were you one of the millions of women who woke up this morning with “nothing to wear” (despite having a wardrobe that could swaddle a small nation?)

Whether it’s due to a lack of time, lack of inspiration (however, if you’re reading BWA how could you be short of inspiration?!), forgetting what you’ve got or just living in a style rut, it’s easy to fall back on that ‘low hanging outfit fruit’ over and over again…

Soon enough you’re bored of “everything you own” and lamenting that you need new things.

Image: www.tresdope.com

PREFER TO DE-CLUTTER? THE HOARDER’S GUIDE TO WARDROBE DE-CLUTTERING

I’m prepared to wager, that in reality your wardrobe contains plenty of hidden mileage and ample nuggets of sartorial gold,  if you’re willing to take a new approach.

The idea of ‘shopping your wardrobe’ (which I’ll explain here and in two further posts) is to dig through what you’ve already got and “re-appreciate it”, in order to come up with lots of new outfits and options you never realised existed.

1. Background: Pep-Up and Prepare With Pinterest

Personally, I like to start with Pinterest to gain broad style inspiration, and to help me get into the groove of thinking about outfits.

Start a personal style board ie “My Style” which will serve as a scrapbook of all the looks that appeal to you.

Caution: unless your’re an Oscars nominee, this is not the place to pin red carpet gowns or awards ceremony fashion. When pinning, keep it real and relevant to YOU – anything else will clutter and confuse.

Pinning style inspiration onto my personal style board.

If you’re new to Pinterest, try searching phrases such as “skinny jeans outfit” (for example) or “pencil skirt looks” to get started. One pin will lead to plenty more (understatement of the century!), so it won’t take long to hit upon looks that resonate most with you.

You can also search Google images, using a phrase such as “winter street style” as a launchpad, to see where this takes you. Simply pin your favourite looks from Google onto your personal style board (installing the Pin-it button in Chrome makes this a cinch) and you’re up and running.

Don’t worry: your Pinterest board/s can be kept secret so no one other than you needs to find out about your penchant for bad Christmas sweaters – or whatever your “thing” is!

As you can see, I should really rename my board the ‘Emmanuelle Alt – Olivia Palermo Mash Up’, but let’s move along.

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