How to update your closet and buy nothing

The most important question that worries all fashionistas: how to update your closet with minimal expenses, if the budget is very limited? It has become especially acute due to the current situation in the world.

Many mass-market brands have left our country, and the choice of clothes has significantly reduced. But what to do if you want to look stylish and updated, without spending large sums?

Maria Babkina

model, founder of her own network of modeling agencies “MARYWAY”.

How to update your closet with minimal expenses?

Investment and reasonable consumption – these are the two main principles to remember when choosing things for your closet. It is enough to once competently assemble the right base of elements that will combine with each other like a constructor, and you will always be on trend. All that remains is to dilute the capsule with a small amount of trendy accessories, and the updated closet will be ready.

There are two ways to look stylish every season without completely revamping your closet. Moreover, you won’t have to spend money on buying new items of clothing. To do this, you need to get acquainted with the services of exchanging things and track fashion trends in the field of accessories.

The first way to freshen up your look is by choosing accessories

Most people tend to underestimate the importance of little things when composing an image. But few people think that a panama and a wicker handbag added to the image can dramatically change it.

Besides, it is much more budget-friendly to buy a pair of trendy jewelry from the costume jewelry section, a headdress and a shopper than to update the closet hangers.

So what accessories should you add to your cart to refresh your look and be on trend this summer? The fashion of the 2000s is rapidly making a comeback. Therefore, you should pay close attention to:

shoulder bracelets;
massive earrings;
voluminous chokers;
big chains;
ring sets;
triple bags;
children’s jewelry.

Voluminous and massive earrings will highlight the geometry of your face and will definitely attract the attention of others. Especially trendy this season are vintage jewelry made of pearls. It is also worth paying attention to accessories in the technique of crochet, decorated with beads or fringe.

Men will also be able to complement and change the image with sets of braided leather bracelets and watches. It is worth paying attention to the strap and the appearance of the watch itself. Bright nylon, rubber and silicone products are perfect for a jogging look, and leather, restrained and monochrome will harmonize with a brutal, modest or business look.

Classic ties will also become trendy this season. However, this does not mean that casual style lovers should deny themselves the pleasure of looking fashionable. Since we are not talking about business style, now this accessory in various colors and modifications should be combined with shorts, sweatshirts and leather jackets. Bandannas, retro frames, stylish water bottles, pearl threads, wide belts – all these are the trends of 2022, which can refresh any men’s image and bring new colors to it.

The second option to look stylish without ruining the family budget

Get acquainted with a new movement in the wave of smart consumption: clothes swapping. Sharing is a trend gaining popularity around the world, which has reached our closets. At the moment, there are many sites on the Internet, where you can exchange your unwanted closet item for something useful that you need right now.

These services are a great find for everyone who follows fashion. After all, in the trends are more and more densely settled tendency to vintage things. And the opportunity to get a unique vintage bag in your arsenal and do not pay a penny for this pleasure, you agree, just great.

In order to look stylish, be on trend and not spend huge sums, you need to remember three basic rules.

Create a competent closet base, in which all things will be combined.
Follow the trends in accessories, update them – and as soon as possible.
Familiarize yourself with clothing exchange services.

About how to find or make a unique piece, we wrote in our material.

The third option is to disassemble the closet

Valeria Leontieva

image stylist, fashion stylist, fashion analyst

In the modern realities of rising prices of ready-made clothes, it is worth revisiting your closet for updating in other ways. It has to be said that the journey should start with sorting out your closet, as cliché as it sounds.

When sorting things out, ask yourself three questions.

Does this item reflect me?
What do I want to say by wearing this item?
Do I really need this item?

Of course, it is necessary to remember also about the condition of things that lie in the closet, and soberly assess their moral and physical obsolescence. After sorting out your closet, you usually make a list of things you need to buy. And here I offer my clients to go several ways.

First, you can exchange clothes at swap parties, for example, replenishing your closet with missing items, at the same time giving your things after sorting them out, rather than throwing them away, which is not ecological in principle.

Another option is to go to a garage sale and essentially update your closet very economically. These types of events (swap and garage sale) are increasingly appearing as city initiatives. There are quite a few of them in Moscow. Also quite interesting and relevant to current trends is the option of second hand stores, resale platforms, vintage stores.

I understand that everyone wants to know what kind of things will help to refresh the closet, but alas, there is no recipe. For someone buying a new scarf or shawl will already bring brightness to everyday images, for someone buying costume jewelry on AliExpress can be a salvation. Someone will be able to diversify their images with the help of different shoes, someone at the expense of handbags. Everything is individual.

The most non-trivial option, perhaps, is the resale sites. There really is a treasure trove of interesting things. But you need a certain level of awareness to get into the trend. I call for conscious consumption, and it is not always about buying something new.

Sometimes it’s really worth paying a stylist once to understand your type, the right prints and patterns, to know your colors, to reassemble your closet and reduce it to a minimal capsule. Not to flesh out things in your closet, albeit with minimal effort.

Follow these tips, and then your bows will always be at the height at minimal cost, and enthusiastic looks will not make you wait.