How to Fund your Style Personality

Introduction

Welcome back to another episode of Black Girl fly. I'm your girl Tanisha Nicole. And I'm Shauna Dixon. And today we're going to be talking about fashion, which is one of my favorite talk, favorite topic. And so in a previous episode, we talked about finding your style personality. And so now we really want to talk about being able to fund it, right? Because nobody talks about money, nobody talks about the loop people and getting a new wardrobe can be very expensive. And I recently did an overhaul and I know my accountant is gonna yell at me. Because it was very sound like, you're not gonna tell people how to do that. Right? I so I had my rationale behind it. We can talk about that later. And I can help you guys just do the fundamentals. It looks like you made a huge investment.

New Wardrobe on a Budget

Not so much. I like so I was. Okay. Let me talk. Let me touch on one point. So I was really thinking about this, because I'm going to a business conference next week. And I remember I've been going to this conference since I was in college. And so I remember when I was younger, in you know, I did not understand professing professional fashion back then. Nor did I have money to be able to finance kind of what I should have been wearing at that time. Actually. I mean, I scrounged up when I could find right mom, our mom had a philosophy about about business attire. For business attire, it was one of her many philosophy. But like there was a it was uniform. Basically, it was always black black suit, white top, black or brown shoes. You know, I chose black because, you know, I'm a messy person. I think I do remember this actually. And so it was very racy interviews, every interview that was the interview uniform. And I remember one interview side note I went to and I wasn't wearing that I was like, I'm gonna get in this job. Because I broke the code. I broke the gosh darn code, Java guys and all kinds of ways. But no, but I was saying I was reflecting on this. Because I was like, wow, I just dropped a lot of money on this wardrobe. But like, when I was in college, I could not afford this right. And so what did I do? I went thrifting, right, like you can find usually a lot of different pieces and thrifting. I feel like you can always find staples, though in 13 as well. Definitely can find staples. I think sometimes it can be hard when you're trying to do a matchy matchy suit because you might not find the exact colors, right, which can be a challenge, but sometimes you can find a set. And so you can try that. There are lots of organizations also that donate like professional clothes and I out drop some of the names in the in the description. But that's also another avenue. Yeah, I would say even like colleges nowadays. So my old college actually just opened up professional.

Like, oh, wow wardrobe for people to come in and get things I love that I would have used something like that. I love that. Well, they just did it this year. Wow, that that is really cool. Because I'm like, this stuff can really add up and we're just talking about professional clothes. And the reason I had to do this overhaul recently is because I haven't been to work

it's so like, I have gotten my fun clothes like pretty is pretty good now it's fun summer I'm really good at that winter we working on that. But then I was like, dang, I have nothing I can wear to work you have to but I mean so in some cases right? People may have gained weight so they can't wear with the stuff that they had before but I just gave it all away cuz I never thought we were going back to work. Never that was that was done. Let me just say that.

Funding your New Wardrobe

But I'm just saying so in order to find funding to your lifestyle. What I did this time around even though it did cost a lot. I actually didn't have to get all that I got what I wanted a full wardrobe and so i i bought suits, right but I there's one thing you could do. Usually they'll sell sets, right you'll have a jacket and a pant and sometimes there are different variations of pants you can get and then a skirt. So those three pieces can make two different outfits. Right? You can have a suit jacket and a skirt or a suit jacket and a pant. But depending on your work environment, you can go more casual. Now you're just wearing the skirt or just wearing the pant right? And so now that's like four or five outfit. pants right you can switch out the jacket with another another thing

Another parent or another skirt, and so like, those are ways that I was building kind of the wardrobe so that I can be the most cost effective. Right. So that's one thing I would say. The other big thing that I leveraged was, thank you, pons. Okay coupon for which shorts? So Ann Taylor, Banana Republic crew limited, the limited. So the limited doesn't exist anymore. Did you know that? No, that was my store back in the day. So they have consolidated, but you can still find the limited stuff like Embo or Nordstrom.

And so, so they still have it places but they're not generating any new clothes. Right? Express. I don't recommend Express they're like for a party like right. Five? Exactly. I would say the same for Zara. I mean, the quality is just not there. But you know, I was buying Zara in college, like, I will say like I've used by Express and they have crazy coupons like they're crazy coupon does it have sales? Plus, you can use the coupon. And most of them when you sign up for the email list to your company to their like a lower Oh, yeah.

The reason I did that, because they had crazy coupons. Well, yes. And so coupons, I would highly recommend people hand me downs and you can get them from folks, those that's another avenue to say like, the thing that I found is that I focus on staples, like like you said about the skirt, the pants and whatever, right. And then I like you can feel it like no one. No, this is a cheap shirt. Right? Like, right? Like you can literally get a shirt that is really low budget and put a nice suit jacket over it. Whatever. Nice. Yes. And you can wear your more casual things with the professional. So that's what I didn't buy any business shirts, because I was like, I can't wear my you know, no, I love my body. My body suits dead bodies and everything, let's say and they have great ones. Abercrombie, I'm just saying these are the most magnificent ones you will ever buy. But you can wear that under suit. nobody actually knows what they know, I used to be so terrible because I hated shopping for myself. And I would just like go to one store and spend like a ton of money and get out of beings like what we know. We know. So God was bad for some of us. But one of the reasons why is all my freakin stuff looked like because it was the same season it was the same like store. So like, like all my stuff looked like and it was terrible. And I always felt like I didn't have enough because when I got out of that style phase, everything goes in the garbage everything. Yeah. And that's what I would say. I would say like buy one big staple item her season. And so it could be a suit. So that's actually what I'm doing now. So I guess I told you I have no episode about how I'm ordering like, people pick clothes for me. And so the cool thing about it, though, is that they're sending me like staple items, and they send it I'm doing every other month. And so I've got some really cool stuff like I'll get like one of these. And I'm and I'm like, first of all, I think they sit there with I can do it with as I'm looking at my clock and like oh, I can also do this or I can do this. And then also, they have like key colors. Yeah, colors that really go with anything. And so what's happening is, I'm only like, I'm only getting new clothes right now like every other month. But their staple items. They're they're really flexible in what I can do with it. And I can really like this batch mix match

all the things that I already have, which so yeah, like that's like I'm spending like 150 175 every other month right now. And by the end of the year, like you will have Yeah, you will have it. So I think that's a great piece of advice, build it over time. You don't have to build it all at once. Right? And by the way, with this, I can pause, which I had to do.

But I can pause it and I just like say, Hey, do I have enough to do what I'm trying to do? Right? Or right? And, but it's waiting for someone else with a knowledge of clothing and really what's out there and the seasons and they're completely different look. So it's not like one same store. Right? That happened? Yeah, and so we've talked about subscription services and so they're also different levels of subscription service. So look into what what works for you and maybe you can switch it up if you want to get like a different feel for what's out there. And so that's a good way to try to fund it over time. We talked about how to get things at a discount or even free any other things about funding your style.

Summary

Oh being you know, methodical about the pieces that you're actually getting the colors in the beginning you probably want to stray away from like colors beyond neutral Yes. So as you see a lot of blacks tans whites. Yeah, yeah. And let me tell you what's out for this season is lots of lavenders and lilacs and blues which are very

seasonal colors, but be careful because you're not gonna be able to wear those. And people notice, yeah, I'm like, Girl, this is my look good. So be conscious if you're gonna make that know that it's a splurge thing that you probably are not going to be able to wear until next year. And I would say, tie for that don't throw away what's in your classes today. Right? That, like, sneaks. You mentioned, put a jacket over

everything and no one notices. And so you can really do a lot. So be more conscientious of what's in your closet? Absolutely. Yeah, there's just so much we can always talk about fashion as we are on this journey ourselves. But we we wanted to give you some of these nuggets as we think about it from a financial standpoint.

That how you can just do things a little bit differently than how you might be used to it. Anything else you would add to that. I think that's good. All right, folks. Until next time, I'm your girl Tanisha Nicole, and we are black girl fly