An unconventional fashion blogger trying to find her place on the internet

We’re coming close to the end of my no-buy November challenge and I won’t lie, the staples in my wardrobe are running dry, so to mix things up I thought I’d try to incorporate a summer dress that’s been worn to death over the last two summers into an outfit for a chilly Saturday in November. I’ve started to wonder how someone can have so much in their wardrobe and yet still finds it difficult to find something to wear?

If you’ve got an answer please let me know.

One of the last snaps I got of this on our honeymoon in Bali

I bloody love this dress, I think the colour and print make it an easy one to transition into the next season, so it felt like a great foundation to start with. I don’t wear dresses and skirts enough (partly because I never remember to buy good tights to wear and partly because I don’t do enough washes in the week to wear them more than once or twice) and was in the mood to be a bit girlier than my basic go-to uniform of jumper, jeans and boots.

In order to make this challenge a little bit more interesting, I thought I’d layer it up with things I bought before this year (except for footwear – I envisaged an outfit with those gorgeous Chelsea boots I picked up in August/September and I’ll be damned if I don’t wear them over and over again) so we’ve got a completely sustainable outfit that wasn’t influenced by trend, just the trendsetter 😉

Can we just take a second to appreciate the beauty of Norton Common in Letchworth Garden City (shout out to my hometown) where these photos were taken? We drive past all the bloody time and I’ve been saying to Aaron for ages it would be the perfect place for some outfit snaps to share on here, so I was buzzing to jump out, get some snaps and run back to car soon after as it was a bitterly breezy day – wearing a dress with some tights was a ridiculous idea.

Here’s a quick overview of how old everything is from this outfit;

• Dress: Gamiss – last summer
• Black jumper: ASOS – two years ago
• Scarf: New Look – three years ago
• Khaki Coat: Oasis – three years ago
• Bag: Mulberry – possibly older than I am (my mum found it in a charity shop when I was a kid before she gave it to me this year and it was vintage even then!)
• Boots: Clarks – this year

Everything in this outfit (bar the boots) was purchased over a year ago and goes to show that you don’t need to be shopping the sales for the latest trends to put together a perfectly autumnal outfit, just have a dive into your wardrobe for some old favourites.

To make this post beneficial for you, I’ve put together a couple of tips for shopping your own wardrobe that I use when I don’t have time or I’ve decided to do a crazy no-buy challenge for the blog;

• When you rummage through, find the piece of clothing you haven’t worn for the longest time – if you’d still wear it, then go for it, if not then it’s probably had its day and you can pop it on eBay. For this outfit, mine was the scarf that I bought in a New Look sale years ago but I love the autumnal colours
• Layer it up! I put a jumper over the dress and felt like I had a new skirt, if you’ve got a shirt that doesn’t look very flattering, put a jumper over it, wear a hoodie with an over-sized denim jacket – the possibilities are endless
• Run through every single item of one type of clothing you have. For example, I’ve made it my mission to wear every single jacket or coat I have this month. You could try wearing every pair of trousers, shirt, blazer, skirt, dress – whatever you’ve got, wear it!

How often do you buy new things for your wardrobe and how long do you normally keep hold of something before binning it off? Let me know in the comments below!

autumnal fashionclothing staplescyber mondayfashion staplesfashion trendshow to shop your own wardrobereusable clothesrewearable fashionshop your own wardrobestaple clothingstaple fashionwardrobe staples