Before the Sales

Chicago by Rachel Smith

Soon we will all be engrossed in them - January sales. Do you wait for them all year long like I do? Well, admittedly, these days, with the recession and all, sales seem to happen all year round with pre-Christmas sales making us spend all our saved pennies before Christmas is over so that we have nothing left to spend on January sales. 

But in keeping with tradition, January sales always attract crowds and we all fall for the illusion that we shall find that long-aspired-for garment or accessory to complete our wardrobe forever and ever. Most of us will take stock of what we buy after the sales and just shove it all in the with rest. Come spring time we will probably just remove half of it all, give it away or swap it, and the vicious circle goes on and on.

So, hey you must be wondering why on earth I'm harping on about January sales when we're still so many days away from Christmas. That's just because this is the perfect time of year to prepare ourselves for a successful January sale-mania-affair.

Vintage New Wave by Rachel Smith

Taking stock of what's in our wardrobe before we embark on any more shopping expeditions does make sense. If anything, it will help us to think out of the box, in full cognition of what we possess and what we might possibly wish for. 

My way of doing it is this....Get hold of all your usual favourites, get them out of the wardrobe and out of sight. They're your favourites, you wear them enough, you don't need to find new ways of wearing them and they generally would appreciate a good rest.

Then consider what you have left. This will include clothes you rarely wear and clothes you never wear. This may be for varied reasons, including the fact that some of them might not fit you anymore. The non-fitting category is as useless as having to wear a wig when you already have a full head of hair. What doesn't fit today, may possibly fit tomorrow, but hey, don't keep hoarding non-fitting clothes because you will end up with a wardrobe of useless items. 

Then there are the clothes you think you cannot wear or clothes you believe are too boring to be worn anymore. It is often surprising what we can do with clothes from this category and here is how it's done.

Prepare yourself to spend at least one solid hour trying to match up items from this lot. That pair of trousers which you never wore after that one party… you might find that it actually matches very well with that jacket your sister swapped with you some time back. Try on, take off, change the ensemble until you find something that seems to come alive when put together.

Once you figure out whether you can wear some new combinations with your un-favourite items, get out the accessories and mix and match those along too. Chances are you will find that you will be able to mix and match one item with more than one other item, and this is how you will start building up some new outfits for the new year. 

And.. the good thing is that this exercise will be an eye-opener. You will realise that you really must have a new black handbag because the one you do have is crying out for a retirement scheme; it will dawn on you that you really do not need any more red belts because you have three of those already; you will come to the conclusion that you can afford to give away at least three of those seven black skirts because you really will never wear them all.  Don't rely on mental notes because these can soon be forgotten in the enthusiasm of so many well-priced goodies. Make a written list of what you really need to look out for and carry it with you so whenever you chance upon what seems to be perfect - you'll know for sure that it is.

Read more about wardrobe organisation here, here and here.
Thanks goes to Rachel Smith on Etsy for these gorgeous images.