By Mariam Bakare
There comes a point when even a wardrobe full of clothes can feel like there is absolutely nothing to wear. You’ve worn the dress exactly the same way three times, those trousers always come with that shirt, and you can already predict which shoes you’ll reach for next.
Before you start adding things to your cart, though, look again. Sometimes your wardrobe isn’t tired; your combinations are. The quickest way to make old clothes feel new is to stop wearing them the way you always have. Here are seven styling tricks worth trying before your next shopping trip.
1. Break Up the Set
That trouser suit doesn’t always have to travel together. Neither does the matching two-piece you bought as one outfit.
Wear the blazer with jeans, the trousers with a fitted T-shirt or the skirt from a co-ord with a completely different shirt. Matching sets are particularly useful because you’re often sitting on several outfits without realising it.
2. Take Your Evening Clothes Out During the Day
The sequinned skirt waiting patiently for December? Try it with a white shirt and flat sandals. That silky evening top can work with denim. A dramatic dress might suddenly feel less formal under an oversized blazer.
Changing the context of a piece is one of the easiest ways to rediscover it. Clothes don’t know what time it is.
3. Change the Proportions
If you’ve always worn your oversized shirt loose, tuck it into a high waist. Wear a cropped jacket over the long dress you usually wear alone. Try the wide-leg trousers with a close-fitting top instead of your usual loose blouse.
Often, it isn’t the individual clothes that feel dated. It’s the silhouette you’ve become accustomed to creating with them.
4. Let One Piece Do a Different Job
A button-down shirt can become a light jacket over a tank. A long dress can look like a skirt when worn under a sweater or shirt. A scarf can move from your neck to your waist, handbag or hair. Even a cardigan can be worn backwards if the cut allows it.
The fun begins when you stop treating every item according to the description it had when you bought it.
5. Change the Shoe Before You Change the Outfit
Shoes have enormous power over how clothes read. The same midi dress can look completely different with trainers, loafers, barely-there heels or boots.
Before declaring an outfit boring, try it with the shoe you would least naturally pair with it. That little bit of contrast is often what makes an old combination interesting again.
6. Steal From Another Section of Your Wardrobe
Your clothes don’t need to remain in their assigned categories. Work shirts can come out at weekends. Holiday pieces can enter your everyday wardrobe. A beach cover-up might work over trousers, while the oversized men’s shirt you usually travel in could look brilliant with a pencil skirt and heels.The more rigidly you categorise clothes, the fewer outfits you think you own.
7. Photograph Your New Combinations
This sounds less fashionable than the other tips, but it works. Spend an afternoon trying combinations you wouldn’t normally wear and photograph the good ones.
You’ll gradually build your own little outfit library for mornings when your imagination refuses to cooperate. You may also discover that the “new” outfit you’ve been looking for has been hanging in your wardrobe all along.
