Or don’t. Don’t just do it. That’s what I did, and really that way leads to madness.
Above you see the rather lovely image of mismatched clothes piled up on my reading chair. That, my friends, is the result of my just doing it. Or at least the latest result of just doing it. You see, every few months I find myself going through my closet and pulling out pieces I bought in a moment of impulsiveness, and saying “I don’t wear this.” or “I don’t love this.” Some of the pieces even have tags on them still. It’s a waste.
So, my first tip in this journey of going vintage: do not just do it. Don’t just jump right into trying to dress vintage. Research first. I know, to many that seems obvious, but, you see, I’m impulsive. Once I get in my head that I want to do something, I jump right in and do it. I thought about slowly changing out my wardrobe from the modern styles I had into a more vintage wardrobe. I thought about it for around a week or two. I read a few articles, and by a few I mean 3, 4, maybe 5. And then I went shopping. Goodwill, thrift stores. Department stores. I would buy anything with even the slightest semblance of a resemblance to what I was looking for. I read online that 40s and 50s pants were high-waisted, so if I saw high-waisted pants, I was thinking “Yep! Perfect!” I bought way too many ugly shirts from Goodwill, because they had buttons and collars. It was a waste of time, money, and space. And as a result I now have clothing that I don’t really wear, and I’m having to slowly rebuild my wardrobe into what I actually envisioned and want.
So, don’t do that. Research the styles -what you want, what appeals to you- and go into it slowly. Unless you can afford to completely ditch your entire wardrobe and start fresh (and even then, I wouldn’t recommend it), I would say go piece by piece. Because as you start digging into the vintage and retro style, you might discover that what you like on mannequins and what you like on your body are two totally different things.
I’ll dig deeper into buying habits in later posts, but for now I wanted to start with the simple do not just do it. Take your time. With this blog, hopefully we can both end up buying less and finding more of what we love and will keep for years to come (or at least until our style changes).
So there it is. My first blog post, and the reason behind it all. Welcome.
-Hollie
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