Makeover Your Wardrobe on a Budget

Fashion isn’t as superficial as it seems. In fact, making over your drab wardrobe into a fabulous collection can really make a difference in your daily life! It is a project that will change the way you feel each and every morning. You will open a closet door to a wardrobe of clothes you love, feel good about yourself when you look in the mirror, and walk through your days with confidence. To top it off, your man will be thrilled to see you looking and feeling beautiful, re-energizing your relationship with attraction and passion.

The most important part of your budget makeover will be pruning your existing wardrobe, dealing with the dust collectors and making room for what you really want. Then, you will find creative ways to revamp what you have left with some budget shopping.

Make sure you have plenty of time set aside, a weekend preferably. Clean your room spotless the day before so it is a feminine oasis for your makeover. The day of, prep yourself for a great day of girly fun. Shower, shave, tan, and do your hair and make-up. You want to feel your best. Create a playlist of fun female empowering songs to rock out to while you work. Have plenty of good snacks and drinks around as well so that nothing, not even hunger, will hinder your mission

Step One: Get Inspired

• Look through fashion magazines to see which of the latest trends catch your eye. You always want to have a few up-to-the-minute pieces in your wardrobe. Focus on real street wear, though. Don’t let yourself become a fashion victim. Runway ensembles are artwork, not for real life, ladies.
• Search online for a celebrity fashion body double. Think of stars that have your similar body shape (even if the size is different, look for similar proportions) to help you see new fashion possibilities. Keep the magazines and web addresses hand so you can refer back to your body double throughout the makeover process.

Step Two: Weeding the Closet

• Get many boxes or shopping bags and arrange them near your closet.
• Begin weeding your closet, filling your bags like so:
• Box #1 Anything that you love, but has a stain, a tear, or is missing a button. Also in this box should be the items that don’t quite fit because they are too big, too long, or needs another sort of reduction alteration. Even if you wear these items as-is, throw them in the box – it is makeover day! The last items that should go into this box are faded pieces, especially black clothes.
• Bag #2 is your “someday” bag. If you are working toward a physical goal, there is nothing wrong with hanging onto smaller sizes to wear when you reach your goal. If you are not actively working toward a goal, there is no reason to torture your self-esteem with them every day. Hopefully, most of these items will go into bags 3 and 4, but if you must keep them, box them up, label them, and stick them in the back of your closet.
• Boxes #3 and #4 One box is for give away clothes and the other is for throw away. Weed out items that are too… anything, too short, too tight, too uncomfortable, too fashion risky. Also weed out anything that accentuates the part of your body you don’t want highlighted, like your love handles. If you haven’t worn the item more than a couple of “trial” times in the last year, go ahead and toss it into your give away bag. If the piece embarrasses your family when you wear it, you change out of it when any company comes over, or you don’t feel pretty when you wear it, it has to go as well. This probably includes your very favorite sweats, jammies, and jeans that you bought new a decade ago. They must go now, but don’t be afraid, they will be replaced. Out of your discarded items, choose whether or not you think someone else would like it or whether it should be tossed. One is bag #3 and one is bag #4.
• Box #5 Any specialty clothing items. Off-season garments like sundresses in winter, clothes you only wear on tropical vacations, snow gear, etc.
• The only items left in your closet should be ones that you love, that you feel beautiful in, that your SO loves on you, or that you have a fashion “vision” for.
• Out of the items left in your closet, there are bound to be garments that you don’t wear because you don’t have the right coordinate, accessories, or shoes. These are the items that go into bag #6. Don’t worry, they aren’t leaving you. They are coming shopping with you!

Fashion Guidelines

Before moving on to filling up your scarce wardrobe, it is time to pause and go over basic fashion guidelines. Use them to comb through the clothes remaining in your closet for a final thinning according to these fashion guidelines.

• Skirts: The general rule is that the hem line should never end at a [relative] wide place in your leg. It gives the impression that you are wider than you are. The most flattering skirt end at your tiniest places, depending on your body shape, it might be just under the knee, at the knee, or a few inches above. The expectations are layered, ruffled, or flare bottomed skirts that end mid-calf. As for the waistline, consider all sorts. You may have anywhere from a low rise to one of the new retro fitted waists that reach up near your ribcage for a trim lengthening effect.
• Pants and Jeans: Skinny jeans are for the very slender, and only for the very slender. Most wearers of skinny jeans look more like they are being squished out the top of the jeans than having their bodies accentuated by the form fitting design. However, the next step up, slim stretch straight legged pants, look good on many body shapes and sizes. The safe and surely flattering choice will always be straight legged and boot cut pants on all body shapes. Flare and relaxed fits are absolute no-no’s. Not even your gardening pants are allowed to have either of those leg cuts.

Test the length of your pants. If you are standing barefoot, you should just be able to step back onto the end of the leg with your heel. With flat shoes, the pants should come close to grazing the floor behind your heel, no more than 1/3 inch off the floor. If you usually wear heels with your pants, then up to ½ inch longer than normal is fine.

The rise of your pants is very important. Find the rise that accentuates your curves without giving you a muffin top (where your belly seems to ooze out of your pants and rests over the waistline like a muffin over the edge of its paper wrapper). If the idle area is not your best feature, then stay away from pleats at the waistline as well. This was popular in the 80’s and has come somewhat back into style, but only on very high fashion pieces. Old school pleats are a major fashion faux pas, but more importantly, they accentuate all the wrong places.

The pockets of your pants make a real difference in the way your booty looks. Here are a few tips: Wide set pockets make you look wider, but close set ones are equally unflattering, so find a balance somewhere in the middle. High set pockets can make a booty look saggy. Low set ones look great all shapes except for boyish figures and high set rear ends. Smaller square pockets are very unappealing and do nothing for your figure. Keep that in mind when you try on your pants to help you decide whether or not you think you can do better.

• Capris, shorts, and hot pants: These short pants have most of the same rules as pants and skirts. Low rise to high top, capris can have any sort of waist as long as you feel sexy in them and you wear them with the right top. The hem should come to one of the smallest parts of your leg, the center of your thigh, the smallest part of the knee region, or at the ankle, depending on your leg shape. The only exception to that rule is a mid calf Capri, but retro style extremely fitted capris are the only ones that compliment your figure at mid-calf.
• Tops: The most important rule with tops is that you feel good in them. Choose fabrics that feel good on your skin and styles that you feel confident sporting. Keep up with fashion trends on lengths and colors. Every few years, the waistlines switch dramatically and so should yours. Colors change with the season as well as the times. It is important to keep up or you will be one of those people who still walks around in neon colored bike shorts and scrunchies in their hair.
• Refer back to your celebrity body double and see what cuts and styles look good on them.

Wardrobe Essentials

• At least one fabulous little black dress.
• A black coat (having a similar one in brown, beige, and coal will be the eventual goal), wool or something like it, that can be dressed up or down and goes with everything.
• Great jeans, at least three pair, that feel good on, fit all day, and look fabulous from every angle.
• A pair of light and a pair of dark all-occasion wrinkle free dress pants that you can dress up or down.
• A basic white dress shirt, possibly a body suit, that fits well and tucks into most of your pants.
• At least two outfits to wear on the days you would prefer to stay in your pj’s all day. One of which can be a stylish track suite or long yoga pants and a trendy tank and sweatshirt. If you find just the right one, a sexy (sleeveless, off the shoulder, or strappy) jumpsuit in velour or terrycloth would be a good replacement. Replacing these items with linen pants and long skirts with a knit top or leggings and a stretchy knit dress is even better.
• Sexy, comfy sleepwear. You need at least one ensemble for each season. There are plenty of options out there, so don’t feel like you have to sacrifice comfort for style. You are going for both. Going to bed feeling gorgeous is just another way to help your self-esteem blossom. Your man will surely be pleased as well, to have you in bed feeling sexy.
• Nice, well-fit undergarments including seamless panties and pretty matching sets. Sporty cotton panties are of course essential, but a few combos just for him are worthy investments. The universal rule of panties is again, no muffin tops! Spanx, the inexpensive, yet magical smoothing underclothes that hide every ripple and dimple, are another essential to your undergarment drawer.

Step Three: Revamp

The next step to your wardrobe makeover is to refill the empty hangers. The concept is to make the most out of what you already have.

• Take care of box #1. Do you mending, dying (a $2 package of dye will make your favorite slacks look brand new), and take a trip to the tailor. If you are not in the practice of having your clothes tailored, the time is now. Anything you love, but doesn’t fit correctly on your body, they can make fit just right. Shop around for good prices and don’t stop until you have found one that works for you.
• Pack the items in your closet that are missing their correlating pieces (like a top that you needs pants to wear with it, a dress that needs a belt, or shorts that you need shoes for) and go shopping. Before you go, though, make a plan. Search your favorite stores online to see if any of them are having major sales. If you find some, see about bringing a fashion and budget savvy friend with you to help you stick to the sale racks, the guilt of overspending is detrimental to the goal. A shopping buddy can also help you to stay in reality with your fashion goals, make sure you don’t buy things that are just going to stay in the closet with the tags on, and that you don’t make any serious fashion faux pas in attempt to be frugal. Shop outlet stores like Ross and TJ Max as well as vintage thrift stores. Some of your best finds are waiting for you at $0.25/lb bin style second hand stores where a designer shirt weighs the same as a generic one. Before you head out the door, take another gander through your fashion magazines and online photos of your celeb body double to get a vision for the complimentary garments you are looking for.
• Host a naked lady party for your girlfriends. The concept is that everyone brings items from their closets that they don’t wear anymore (your box #3). You all shop each others clothing over wine and appetizers (also potluck style). As the host, you take everything left over to your favorite charity donation drop.
• Look for pieces that will work with multiple ensembles in your closet. This will help you stick to your budget, but also make for more variety in your wardrobe.
• Focus on the essential (refer back to the Wardrobe Essentials section of the Fashion Guidelines for your must-haves) first, especially if your budget is very tight.
• Don’t forget about shoes, accessories, undergarments and outerwear.

There you go! You have a completely made-over wardrobe and you did it with financial responsibility.