This time of year, nearly every women’s magazine you pick up has an article extolling the virtues of meal planning. How a bit of work up-front saves time, money and stress. How weekly or monthly meal planning helps you stay organized. Meal planning promises to prevent you from eating-on-the-fly or shopping when you’re hungry, both of which can lead to excessive consumption and poor judgement. So what does any of that have to do with wardrobe planning, you might ask? Read on!

WARDROBE PLANNING IS LIKE MEAL PLANNING

With a little forethought, prep work and a few good recipes, wardrobe planning will also save you time, money and a great deal of frustration.

Use Recipes for Inspiration

Half the battle, when it comes to meal planning, is deciding upon the menu for the week or month. Fortunately, you don’t have to come up with recipes yourself, if you don’t want to. Consulting a recipe book, magazine or cooking website can inspire new flavour combinations and influence your culinary direction. The same goes for your closet. Flipping through fashion magazines or surfing websites like Pinterest, can inspire fresh clothing combinations you may not have considered before and, ideally, show you some hip ways to wear items you currently own.

Take Inventory and Make a List

Clothes shopping without checking your closet beforehand is like grocery shopping without first checking your fridge and pantry. It leads to buying things you don’t need and neglecting to pick up other items you actually need.

Cross reference your inventory list with the outfits/recipes you intend to create, to determine what ingredients go on your shopping list. How many more cardigans or jars of pasta sauce do you really need?

Stick to the list! This will prevent you from buying items that will ultimately sit unworn/uneaten and forgotten until they have passed their best before date.

Btw, check out how we use Stylebook, our favourite wardrobe inventory app.

 

Have a Variety

Imagine the only starch you ever bought was bread. Sure you could make traditional sandwiches, open faced sandwiches, stacked sandwiches, toasted sandwiches, etc., but at the end of the day, you’d still be eating sandwiches.

Then imagine what would happen if a friend you really wanted to impress came over for dinner.  You attempt to serve something special, interesting and classy, but all you’ve got is the fixin’s for sandwiches. Despite your best efforts, the sense of occasion and elegance would still be lacking.

It’s the same with wardrobe planning. If, for example, you only bought knitwear tops, it doesn’t matter how many colours or styles or patterns you own, what fancy appliques they have, or the cut of sleeve or neckline, you still have just t-shirts. Having an abundance of one thing and lacking another often creates the phenomenon of “a closet full of clothes and nothing to wear” or nutritional imbalance. You’ve got to throw some quinoa (and kale!) in there too. In other words, add some crisp and/or silky tops in the mix.

Cook Once, Eat Twice

If you are going to the trouble of cooking rice, meal planning experts recommend you cook a large enough amount to be able to serve it a couple of different ways within the same week. This means less work in preparation and clean up, and helps to avoid culinary boredom. For instance, you might make rice to go with your chickpea curry and then 2 days later, have the rice with a squirt of lime and scoop of guacamole inside your bean burritos (yes, I am vegetarian). You can apply the same thinking to your closet. Plan to wear your silky blouse with a pencil skirt to work, and then pair it with your distressed denim for brunch on the weekend with friends. Totally different flavour, but equally delicious.

Season to Taste

Your signature dish just wouldn’t be the same if you didn’t use seasoning. It would be boring and bland. Think of accessories as the herbs and spices of your wardrobe. How you season your outfit is what takes it from dull to delicious. Just as you can take a stir-fry or casserole and alter the taste completely simply by changing up the spices, so can you change up the flavour of your outfit by adding, removing or switching up your accessories. Accessories bring personality, increase visual interest to your outfit and contribute to the overall flavour of your style. Sometimes a dash of colour or sparkle is all it takes to add some zip to your look.

 

 

Are you hungry for wardrobe makeover? Contact The Joy of Style today. We’ll help satisfy your craving and create a closet your inner epicure will love. Bon appétit!

 

 

 

 

 

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