How to create a wardrobe you love

How often do you open your wardrobe, see it full of clothes, but feel that you have nothing to wear? Don’t worry if your answer was, “All the time!” There are many other women who will have said the same. Apparently, most people only wear 20% of their clothes 80% of the time. That’s a huge chunk of our wardrobe that most of us are not making use of! As a personal stylist I want you to feel inspired by your clothes. I want them to boost your confidence and make you feel excited about getting dressed in the morning. So, how do you create a wardrobe that you love? Here are my top tips:

Identify your style personality
Your style personality is the style of dressing that you’re naturally drawn to. Understanding your style personality means that you can pick clothes and accessories that are more reflective of you. Sometimes we can sit between more than one style personality and our style personality can change over time. Here are some examples of different style personalities:

Natural – you like a minimal and unfussy style where comfort is key.
Classic – you prefer a timeless, elegant and understated look.
Creative – you’re drawn to quirky, colourful styles and like to push the fashion boundaries.
Dramatic – you like your style to make a statement and are willing to sacrifice comfort in the name of fashion.
Romantic – you love a dreamy style in pretty pastels with lots of feminine details.

My style personality sits between dramatic and natural

If you don’t love it, don’t buy it!
This may seem obvious but it’s amazing how many of us don’t live by this rule (myself included at times!). It’s so easy to get sucked into buying clothes for all sorts of reasons – they were on sale, we liked them on someone else and wanted to try them too, or a magazine told us they were on trend. Don’t get me wrong, these can all be perfectly valid reasons for buying something. But, they shouldn’t be the only reason. Our clothes should make us feel amazing, and if something doesn’t our money is better spent on clothes that do. If an item of clothing doesn’t make us feel good, we’re unlikely to wear it.

I adore this dress and wear it all the time!

Buy the correct size
It can be really tempting to buy clothes that are too big for us if we’re feeling self-conscious about our body in an attempt to hide our shape and make ourselves look smaller. The thing is, it will actually have the opposite effect. The best thing we can do to flatter our body shape and showcase our best assets is to buy clothes in good quality materials, with a good fit, in the correct size. Bear in mind that your clothes size can vary depending on the shop you’re buying from so you may sometimes need to size up or size down from your regular size.

Think of three ways to wear it!
It’s no fun buying something only to find that it goes with nothing in your wardrobe. When that happens, the risk is that you end up buying lots more clothes just to make that original item work or it ends up sitting in the back of your wardrobe unworn. A good rule of thumb to live by is to make sure you can create at least three different outfits from every new item you’re thinking of buying with the existing clothes in your wardrobe. Have fun trying out different combinations and take photos of your outfits.  

This shirt dress has plenty of styling options making it really versatile

Keep your lifestyle in mind
Buying clothes that are suited to your lifestyle will ensure that your wardrobe is full of clothes that work for you. Do you work full time? Are you a stay-at-home mum? Do you spend lots of time at the gym? Think about how you spend your time each week and create a wardrobe that’s reflects this.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this blog. Feel free to leave me a comment below!