The Smart Shopper’s Guide to Fashion Shopping

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My easy to follow fashion shopping rules to save you time, money and effort

Christmas is around the corner and I know many of you are already getting ready for a good old seasonal shopping spree. But before you head off to seriously overspend, here are some of my top tips for fashion shopping which are all based on my own mistakes. Save some money this season and start shopping smart with the help of these easy-to-follow tips.

Try your best to steer clear of impulse (especially post-breakup) shopping: I know it’s hard. We are most likely to buy fashion items, which is way out of our comfort zone, when we are shopping impulsively, especially when we are upset or being after a breakup. I did the same and I happened to never wear those items at all.
Don’t buy what doesn’t fit perfectly: if it’s too tight or too small, if you have any difficulty putting it on, do not buy it no matter how good it looks like on the rack and how much you would love it to fit. Because even if you look sexy in it, when you are at home, one glance at that pair of trousers (usually those are the most problematic) will instantly make you feel uneasy. And it’s not a pleasant feeling to wear something which simply does not fit.
Messed-up designs: these are the designs which just won’t fit because they are designed for a very specific body –type: one that barely exists. These may look super cool on the paper-thin models but they won’t look good on you.
Don’t buy an item which would not make you feel good about yourself: And one key is cosiness. I know there in fashion cosiness is often overrated, but if you won’t feel good wearing something you would not wear them in the future. We are bound to wear one garment during the day: it’s the least that we feel good in them.
Don’t let friends or family persuade you into buying something you normally wouldn’t buy. I used to go shopping with a friend and she looked great, in fact better than me. This made me feel competitive and made me buy items which were simply not for me. I never wore those items ever again.
Don’t let sales make you overspend: I just happened to check prices at an outlet and it turned out they are pretty much the same as those at the brand’s proper website. Don’t go crazy just because Sales is written somewhere. Most women tend to dangerously overspend during seasonal sales and on top of it all, they end up never wearing most items they buy ever again.

Don’t force-buy items just because of their brand name: we often tend to shop things we wouldn’t even think of because they are cheaper than usual, this happens with the best of us. I used to have items which I tended to keep solely because of their brand, but I could never make myself wear them.
Always move in the garments you try on. In case of shirts, t-shirts always lift up your arms and move, see if the shoulder area moves out of its place and whether it stays so. Pencil skirts are also prone to move, either upwards when they are too small or turn around when walking when they are too tight. If you do any movements and the garment would stay in an unpleasant position or changes positions don’t buy the item. Its design is simply not for your body-type and you don’t want to wear an item which you need to rearrange every 5 minutes.
Don’t buy items which are way out of your comfort zone: it’s good to explore trends. But if your personality simply won’t fit that trend or you simply feel you look strange or not yourself in them, you should steer clear from that item because you will never ever wear them.
Choose colours which fit you and you like wearing: colours have a drastic influence to your appearance and most of us know which colours we like and which colours look good on us. Other colours would simply not fit our personality type, make us look too pale or accentuate our skin tone in a bad way. I bought a pair of red trousers. I wore it perhaps once, because simply I never felt good wearing them. Same happened with a lovely bright red pullover. So, I know that I’m probably not ready to wear red just yet.

However do try to buy multiple colours or multiple shades: I love black, dark blue and grey. After a while I realized that I have way too many of these colours and after a while this became pretty boring. So try to be more colourful, but move along colour schemes which would not make you feel very odd.
Never trade your own style to something that’s trendy: trends come and go but you know fully well what suits you and what doesn’t. So, don’t stop wearing something just because it’s considered out of style. Luckily these days, style is not taken strictly any longer.
There are trends which should never come back though: these include the” lunar-sole” or thick-sole shoes. Please don’t spend your money on those. Not only do they look terrible, they are also dangerous to wear because they have the tendency to get stuck and make you fall. I just recently saw a girl having a terrible fall because of wearing these.
Honour most trends/seasons with accessories, they are cheaper and better.
Don’t let price absolutely control your actions: also take quality into consideration: My panties I bought at Marks and Spencer were good for more than 5-8 years, while panties I bought at H and M are destroyed within one or two years only.
Do not buy an item which you already have lots of. Just think and make a cool assessment of what you need and what you won’t need.
Don’t shop in a rush – make shopping an event: Shopping should always be an event where you feel good, take your time to check though items and to try everything on and finally to make the final assessments. This is the only way to make sure you get items which were really worth buying.

+1 Last but not least: window shop even online. Then wait one or more days and think about what you really want to buy and what you don’t really need or want. You don’t need to shop something when you enter a store. You even have the chance to make the shop store the item for you for a few days. This will give you time to think if you really need and can really afford that item or items.