Buying Inexpensive Clothes does not mean they look Cheap!!
I needed to preface the post with the above statement because that is the biggest misconception. In this post I am sharing 10 common reasons why your clothes look cheap even though sometimes you spend top dollars on them. This is the primary reason you are ruining your style, wardrobe and wasting all the money. These are the reason why you always end up at the discount section or pick up pieces you don’t wear.
If you are wondering why every time you put together an outfit, it always seems to be missing something. Or you are wondering why your looks don’t look as nice as you want them to be, then keep on reading to find out.
You Hate Shopping or Feel Overwhelmed
When you feel overwhelmed or you don’t at all enjoy the process of shopping, you most likely would just buy what you see is right infront of you. Or you might just not shop at all and rely on someone else like your Spouse, or family member. In this scenario, you will never find what you are looking for and most of the time the pieces that you wear are not really flattering on you.
I have friends, who share that they just hate the idea of trying to decide what looks good on them or what is the right purchase for them. So, they end up stalking the sales rack because it always makes sense, or ask their sisters or mother to shop. While I am totally onboard this idea, but the person whom you solely rely on shopping might not be so good at it themselves.
HOW TO FIX THIS: And I know for most of us, hiring a personal shopper is not the most financially wise decision. But you can tackle this by following fashion blogs that have a style or fashion sense that aligns with you. This will not only help you to shop better, but also find outfit inspirations to style the pieces you shopped for.
Alternatively, staying upto date with online store newsletters will help you to categorize pieces that you want to purchase. And even though you go to the physical store to shop, you know what to look for.
You Think You can Never Look Stylish
This is a common complain or thought process among many women. And you are not to be blamed for it. As a society women are brought up to be always self critical. We always doubt our decision, our potential. So, its natural that some of us also feel that we don’t deserve to or don’t even have the potential to look stylish because the way we look, or the job we have or don’t have.
Style has nothing to do with our status or body shape or beauty. Most stylish women you see in the magazine, or television were not bon that way. You can easily find that by researching about them. It took some conscious styling and grooming to look the way they do now. And you can do the same. It does not matter whether you can only afford a $100 handbag, if you find the right style that fits your personality, you will look great rocking it. And it looks stylish.
HOW TO FIX THIS: Start with what is limiting your style beliefs and tackle that. I recommend learning how to style certain pieces for your body type, or trying to find out what style will suit you and work on improving that style. And more importantly investing in grooming tools and tricks that will help you elevate your overall look will help you achieve that.
Style is an expression of our personality. It’s not just dressing up in pretty things. You don’t have to look or be a certain way, improving your style is part of improving yourself.
You Are Waiting for a Body Goal
I have probably been guilty of doing this myself. Often times we tell ourselves that we need to look a certain way and then we are allowed to shop nice or look good in nice clothes. While in my 20s this seemed to be a good way to stay motivated, in my 30s I realized, time is precious and I want to live and look the very best I could be every minute of it.
It is definitely a good goal to focus on loosing weight in next six months and then treating yourself to something nice, the process is always daunting. And often delays the result as well. In this era of world where we celebrate women in every shape and height, why deprive yourself of looking and feeling good if you havent reached a certain body shape.
HOW TO FIX IT: You do not have to shop for designer clothes, if you are going through a transformation, but you can definitely find a good fit of the garment that always looks more flattering than oversized clothes.
You can also pick pieces that you will be able to alter in future if wasting money on a garment that you will be wearing for a short amount of time feels daunting. I personally love the a mix of high and low pieces so I can balance my wallet and my style sense. So, finding inexpensive clothing pieces does not mean they are cheap. Its clothes that just look cheap on Us are the ones we need to avoid.
You Feel Style is Overrated
I completely disagree with anyone saying this. And it might feel a little bit sarcastic as well. But I hear a lot of women saying or even thinking that looking nice will make them less intelligent. While, one could argue being in the Tech industry that it does happen, but as women we cannot think of it like that.
But this thought process affects the overall willingness to look better and improve ones overall style. While I love women complimenting me, but sometimes those compliments don’t feel genuine to me, because often it is underlined by the judgement of “why is she taking so much effort of looking better? she must be stupid or vain!”. I know I will be getting a lot of hate comments with this one, but it is so true.
I also blame this on our society, and the culture of pulling people down in order to rise up, but let’s not deviate from the main topic of the blog post. This mentality of in order to look intelligent you need to look shabby needs to GO!
HOW TO FIX THIS: Honestly, often there is not much change that you need to do except for grooming yourself a little better. You don’t have to dress up in a cocktail dress everyday or wear designer clothes or accessories. All you need to do is pay attention to the fit of clothes which makes you look smart and do some grooming like styling your hair or doing minimal makeup to look more presentable. I have a whole blog post about how you can look stylish everyday with minimal effort that will be really helpful here.
You are Always Shopping for Something New
It can also go wrong the other way round. And this often happens to those of you who don’t pay attention to anything in their wardrobe. You are often looking for validation with the next best thing instead of figuring out why your current wardrobe is not helping you. You are constantly on the hunt for that new item that is going to make you feel stylish. This is exactly what I used to do a few years ago.
Yes, you can read about the main reason on my About page, but I definitely used to find comfort in shopping. Though I still have to shop now as a fashion blogger, my thought process has completely changed. I used to think that only new pieces in my closet look stylish. I never bothered to see if what I am buying is working for other items in my closet. And so, either I would never wear them again, or I cannot pair them well with anything.
And all this led to me always finding bargain pieces because I was constantly shopping which often led to compromising on the fit or design of the item, which again led to never wearing it again and shopping more. If you are reading this and nodding your head in agreement you know exactly what I am talking about.
HOW TO FIX THIS: Checkout a video where I share how you can practical find what your personal style is. This will help you in identifying what key pieces you should own. This will help you to narrow down your shopping which is the first step towards finding items that fit and look better on you. As you get used to that process, you will realize that you are making a more conscious decision of what you want to buy and in turn will pick elevated pieces that will make you look stylish.
You are Always Shopping for Trends
While this might seem as the same issue as the one I mentioned above, its not. And I blame social media like Instagram and TikTok for this. We are constantly shown new trendy items to shop for which is the job of the social bloggers or influencers. But, it also affects us because it works like those magazines I used to look at when I was younger. They influenced me to try to look like them which in turn influenced me to shop the trendy pieces.
While I might look great momentarily, our wardrobe on the other hand would have a collection of fish mash pieces that don’t really go well. Or they become outdated in the next season. Unless you are as confident as Madonna, to rock any style, most of us just give up on that item or if we are in a money crunch we are forced to rock them out of season as well.
This also makes us always look for cheaper items because we have to shop a lot to keep up, don’t we.
HOW TO FIX THIS: The first and foremost is to stop getting influenced by Social Media. Use them for style inspiration and not just for shopping. Of course if you find something that looks good and you can wear it and it works well with the rest of the pieces in your wardrobe you should buy it. But I have always found that if I don’t shop impulsively, I always make a better decision of shopping for a quality piece that works for my closet and makes me look stylish for longer than once or twice. Even though its an inexpensive item, if if looks goo on you and flatters you, it will look nice.
Checkout this guide where I share my favorite tips on building a Dream wardrobe that will work for you for years. Its always important to find pieces that work for you on the long run instead of working for you once.
You Never Take Care Of Your Clothes
This is a big one, and it might be affecting your wallet badly. If you don’t know how to take care of your clothes and accessories properly, no matter how expensive they are, they will look damaged and cheap. If you are wearing a sweater which has a lot of shedding or your linen or satin is not steamed properly, does not matter how much money you have spent on it, it will look poorly made and cheap.
The same goes for your accessories or handbags and shoes.
HOW TO FIX THIS: Its really simple, its important to pay attention to the garment care instructions that you can find on every piece you buy. Following that will help you to maintain the material and quality of the piece. Also pay attention to how you can care and maintain handbags or shoes. They are also a key factor in elevating and making your outfit look luxurious. Invest in a Lint Shaver, steamer or iron which will help you look more put together.
I have a care guide section where I am adding more and more care instructions, check that out for more tips.
You Don't Pay Attention How Your Clothes Make You Feel
Often I see women, wearing something because they see their friends on the same trend or just because it’s new without realizing whether it looks good on them or more importantly how they feel wearing it. Your office might have business casual dress code and everyone is wearing shorts and T shirt and you are too because you can mingle.
But it does not help you feel confident or comfortable at all. Clothes have the power to make us feel confident on ourselves and command the world, but they are often overlooked.
HOW TO FIX IT: Even if you want to blend it and be like everyone else, you don’t have to do copy everyone to the T. There are so many ways you can still look appropriate but feel stylish and look good. Compromising the way you look because someone else will approve you is something we have done as a teenager. Now its your time to feel confident and show yourself for it no matter what you do or where you are.
Check the dress code and dress appropriately instead of looking shabby because no one else dresses up or looks nice.
You Don't Shop At The Right Stores
To look our best we need to shop at stores that sell clothes our size which will make us look good. I can never shop at Zara. You will never see any Zara pieces here. I know they have great style in budget but, most of the sizes don’t fit me as I have broader shoulders. If I try to fit in their clothing, it always looks weird or disproportionate. I feel the same way for Amazon. Over the years I have tried to shop for pieces that I see other bloggers rock, but for some reason they look way worse and cheap on me most because of my body type.
HOW TO FIX THIS: Try to find stores which sell clothes that will fit you better. I have a blog post where I sharing stores you should shop in your 30s. Use that as a starting point to understand what pieces to shop from a certain store. You do not have to pay full price if you don’t have to. You can add that item to your wishlist and wait for a promotion to save money on them.
This is a much better approach to discount shopping which brings me to the next point.
You Always Do Coupon Shopping
I totally used to do this, so I can relate. Its tough to resist a good sale or not shop because an item is not on sale. After all that is the reason a lot of stores have regular sales. They know that is the only time they will make a purchase. But we often end up compromising on the quality of the item and loose out on pieces that would have worked wonders for our wardrobe with all this discount shopping.
And we end up with a pile of clothes that we hate and bought because they were on sale. There is a better way to do discount shopping.
HOW TO FIX THIS: Identify what Items you need in your closet before shopping for them. And then checkout pieces that might be on sale but still work for you. Don’t buy something just because they are on sale. Save the money and buy a good quality full priced item that you will truly enjoy. Sometimes buying a full price has its own charm.
You can keep discount shopping for items like underwear, pajamas, gym gear or basics that you know you will get a lot of wear out of. This forces you to try on the piece and validate the purchase. And always look at the fit. If its not available in the size you need, please don’t buy it.
I am curious to know how many of these have you been guilty of. If you have overcome it, how did you do it?
