23. April 2026
How to bring inspiration to your existing wardrobe
You know that you probably wear only half of your wardrobe. You might have too many clothes so you just don’t get round to them all, or you might feel comfortable in just a small proportion.
Maybe you’ve got a wardrobe that just doesn’t allow you to see everything you have or, and this is an important one to note, you ‘don’t go anywhere to where’ some of the items.
The thing is, when that small proportion get ‘samey’, you feel bored with your choice, you could have the urge to buy new. That’s not always a good thing for a whole host of reasons.
Why bring some inspiration to your current wardrobe?
As with most of the regular things we ‘do’ in life, eat, work, relationships, finding something new and interesting about them is key to feeling positive about them. The same is with clothes, if you can find a new way of wearing something you have, just by combining it differently, or seeing it in a different light, you will feel positive about your wardrobe and of course yourself and how you look.
What we wear matters to our confidence and, evidence shows, to stepping into career and life roles that we want to be in.
In this blog I will show you how to bring inspiration to your existing wardrobe. This will help you use more of your wardrobe, and in the process, help you refine and define your unique style personality.
Ways to bring inspiration in...
1 Try 'wardrobe shuffling!' We often put clothes back on hangers in the same place in the wardrobe when we’ve finished with them. This leads to habits of wearing the same items together.
Take an hour out of your weekend and remove every hanger from your wardrobe, or if you stack
your clothes in drawers, from there too.
Now start to put items back and as you do this consider what options each item might go with. You’ll soon see combinations of colours and styles you didn’t before. Hang a note (parcel tags are great for this) on hangers to remind you of the combinations (or book a wardrobe session with me where they are included!).
2 Create a 10 minute wardrobe planning habit for your Sunday evenings.
Diary in hand, hang up your outfits for the week ahead. Think about how you want to feel for what you have on. Consider how the colours you will be wearing will have an impact on those that you are meeting. Just by thinking more purposefully about your outfits you will start to use more of your wardrobe and bring a variety of combinations into your wardrobe.
3 Buy a fashion magazine - Vogue, Elle, Esquire, Homme, 72.... Yes there will be lots of ‘new season’ buys promoted but you’ll often see items you already have combined in new ways. And buying the odd item to refresh your existing wardrobe is no bad thing, providing you wear it.
4 Look up style icons you admire. I went to the Marie Antoinette exhibition at the V&A recently and took away style ideas for jewellery to freshen up the boho side of my wardrobe.
5 Move accessories around or buy a new piece to bring a fresh look to an existing outfit.
Tips and reminders
- You are probably wearing only half of your wardrobe because of habit. There are items you don’t wear that could add some inspiration into your wardrobe.
- The key is to look at it differently. Firstly try shuffling and reorganising to see the combinations.
- If you can’t see new ideas yourself, look to magazines or style icons for inspiration.
- Adding just one piece of jewellery, an accessory or clothing item can change several outfits.
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