Style Buzz: Being a Collage + A Recession-Proof Wardrobe + Styling Shorts

Eugene Stylist
Jun 12
5 min read

Three Ideas to Inspire Your Style This Week

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I'm a collage!"

No, not because she looked like pictures cut from a magazine and artistically glued to a page! I totally understood what she meant: she has clothes and accessories that she was either given or gifted from people in her life, and when she wears them, she's a whole made from parts of all those people. They're visual reminders of someone's love for you from various times in your life, and wearing them is a sweet way to remember and honor that.

xxx rachel

RECESSION-PROOFING YOUR WARDROBE

There's a saying in England from WWII to use, reuse, and repair clothing and other materials:

"Make do and mend."

Make Do and Mend was a government initiative to "encourage the civilian public to repair and alter clothing, and re-use fabrics in order to save valuable resources for the war effort. [It] promoted education in the techniques of dressmaking and tailoring, clothes mending, needlework, and knitting, and garment care." Wikipedia

It's good practice at any time, not just during wartime clothing rationing. We've grown so accustomed to buying whatever we want, donating it when we're tired of it, and discarding it when it's worn. However, is that the best way for our wallets? Our community? The planet? And as we scooch closer to a recession and massive tariffs on imports, we know that clothing costs are going to seriously escalate, so it's smart to start saving where possible and eliminating needless spending.

These principles make just as much sense now as they did in 1943. We're just not in the habit of following them, but it's pretty straightforward to implement them into your modern lifestyle. So what can you do right now to recession-proof your wardrobe? So glad you asked!

Make Do: You always hear me touting the importance of a piece being versatile. Apart from very few pieces like a special occasion gown or a coat for a very specific purpose, like visiting the Arctic Circle, everything in your wardrobe should be mix and match. Ideally, each piece can be paired with at least 5 others to create not just new outfits but new looks - like how the shorts below can be dressed up or dressed down, worn for completely different situations, and fit almost any occasion where shorts are appropriate. That's versatility.

Part of discovering how versatile a piece is comes with challenging yourself to put together outfits with just the pieces you already own. One way to do this is to hold the item - let's use the shorts as an example again - up to various tops to see how they work together, then adding accessories like shoes, jewelry, and hats, to come up with as many combinations as possible. You'll start to find that you've got a lot of options with only a few pieces.

Perhaps you have a blouse that's perfect in Spring and Summer, but how can you wear it year round? Add warmer layers both under and over it. I'm a huge fan of silk thermals under light summer blouses, then popping either a sweater or jacket over it for cooler weather.

Another way to get the most out of what you already have is to repurpose a piece, or at least see it differently. One client only wore her dresses to work. Once I got her to see how she could make a dress a little more casual with a denim jacket or tennis shoes, she suddenly had a whole new range of outfits for picking up her kid from school, running errands, or just hanging out with friends. Another felt her brown suede jacket was too light as outerwear, so I renamed it "a blazer" and she wears it almost all year.

Mend: You don't need to be a master tailor to sew on a button or stitch a ripped seam, but if you can do that, you're extending the useable life of a garment. If you'd rather outsource jobs - little or big - to a qualified expert, check out these lists of local tailors and shoe repair. They'll fix the small repairs before they become big, unrepairable ones, and turn a piece of clothing from something you never wore into one you never take off.

I actively encourage people to have everything, even their everyday clothes like jeans, tailored. Very few pieces will fit right off the rack, so having them altered just for you will elevate your style immediately. Plus, if we don't continue to use services like tailors and shoe repair, those businesses will close and we'll have to throw out items that need only small repairs.

So those are ways to manage the clothes you already have, but what can you do from here on out and into the future? The key is buying fewer, better-quality pieces. Once you start to discover your style, you'll learn to be quite picky about what new pieces you add to your wardrobe, choosing garments that are made with higher-quality materials and methods that last a lot longer. Additionally, better made clothing is easier to repair and alter. Cheap fast-fashion pieces don't have the construction that a tailor can work with, and once it's damaged, you'll have no option but to throw it away: a waste of money and resources straight into landfill. While you can find long-lasting pieces at some fast-fashion stores (I have an Old Navy dress from 2012!), get in the habit of heading to our local new and resale boutiques as your first choice. You'll find pretty, quality pieces that are more mindfully sourced and you're supporting small businesses, which is a win for our community.

3 WAYS TO WEAR IT: White Denim Shorts

The recent bout of hot weather finally gave me a chance to pull out one of my summer staples: white walking shorts. I love these - they go with so many tops, I can dress them up or down, and if they get grubby, I simply bleach them! I like the thicker denim variety rather than a thin cotton as they're a lot more durable. These hit me a few inches above the knee.