Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Creating A Wardrobe

So I know it's been a little over a week since I last updated. But hopefully the number of posts per week will go up as my school time goes down. Finals are just about over, so I should have oodles of free time to write. Which is good, right? Anyhow, on with the post.

Building a Wardrobe

You've got your style choices, color choices, and maybe you see some pieces that you like. Now, you can start building a wardrobe. This can take a long time and can be a hit and miss process. There are two methods to building a wardrobe. The first is the purposeful, methodical, and planned out method, and the second is the random acquisition method. I'm going to first talk about the random acquisition method.

Random Acquisition Method

This is probably the most common method for creating a wardrobe. This method involves buying random pieces and creating outfits around them. The resulting wardrobe can end up with varying styles and outfits, or it can end up very homogenous. I personally have been piecing my wardrobe together using this method. My resulting wardrobe consists of many different styles (some sweet pieces, some classic, mostly kuro, quite a bit of casual) and is a moving target. This is a perfectly fine way to make a wardrobe! You should definitely make a wardrobe of pieces that you love and not worry too much about keeping consistently to one style.

Purposeful and Planned Out Method

This is a much newer and more internet-centric method. What you do is choose pieces that you want to get, create outfits with them, and then buy those outfits. This can still lead to the same wardrobe as above. I've recently started doing more of this, but I still want both sweet pieces and classic, kuro, and casual coordinates. This can also lead to a highly homogenous wardrobe where every piece works in multiple ways.

Using Polyvore

I know I've brought up Polyvore before, but I cannot stress how fun this thing is. You can save all the things that you want or own and make outfits from them. Or you can save random stuff and just have fun with it. I'll use Polyvore frequently here to show coordinates in particular price points, styles, or even whole wardrobes, like I will right now.


This is a gothic wardrobe. It's a bit on the medium side, but each piece can be coordinated with multiple other ones. The five dresses/skirts at the top are all brand pieces, from right to left they are Metamorphose Temps de Fille, Alice and the Pirates, Moi Meme Moitie, Alice and the Pirates, and Baby the Stars Shine Bright. The first two blouses are off-brand, and the other three are from a Taobao shop, Qutieland. All of the shoes are from Bodyline, except the cream ones (Innocent World) and the blue ones (offbrand). Four of the five head pieces are Alice and the Pirates/Baby the Stars Shine Bright, and the blue one is Moi Meme Moitie. But most of these are easily made at home using materials that are easy to find. The black bat bag is Bodyline, the silver one is Fan + Friend, and the black bow bag is off brand. All of the tights and jewelry are off brand too. This illustrates that your entire wardrobe does not need to be made up of "brand" items. There are plenty of fantastic off-brand items out there that will fit in perfectly with your wardrobe.

Both of the coordinates above were made from items in that gothic wardrobe. As you can see, they are both gothic and very different. If you have a wardrobe filled with the basics, then you will be able to make lots of fabulous outfits!

Say you're not into gothic style. It's not everyone's thing. Well, I've also made another example for you all!

Here's a wardrobe that depending on how you coordinate things can go sweet, classic, or even country. Maybe it looks familiar? That's because I based it off of the coordinates I used in my Choosing your First Pieces post.

Chocolat

Chocolat by Cat91151 featuring a heart bag

While this coordinate does have items not in the above wardrobe, none of those items are very expensive on their own. The shoes are from Bodyline (around $33 USD) and the bow is handmade. This is a more classic use of the pieces.

This is a coordinate using the Angelic Pretty One-piece from the original wardrobe. The bow is handmade, and the jewelry could be found anywhere, even somewhere like a party supply store. This could become a more over the top sweet coordinate, but for this, I made it a very subdued sweet style.

So as you can see, two very different wardrobes with very different coordinates that can be made from the pieces. If you click on the wardrobes, it will take you to a page that lists everything in them. From there, you can make your own polyvore account and make coordinates for yourself! Have fun!

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