My Number One Shopping Tip As A Professional Stylist

My number one shopping tip? Try it on! I mean it’s not rocket science.

I’m not talking about trying it on in the store, you need to try it on at home.* As soon as you get home from the store TRY IT ON. That dress you loved in the J.Crew dressing room can look dramatically different in the cold hard light of day. For starters, I think we can all agree that most dressing room lighting is trash. Some stores have started upgrading their lighting (in an attempt to get you to post dressing room try ons) but we’re far from Golden Hour. You might tell yourself “this will look better in better lighting”. Spoiler alert, it might not.

Practically speaking, different articles of clothing require different underpinnings. And odds are you’re not wearing the right ones. “Oh this will look so much better with a strapless bra”, “my SPANX will make all the difference”, “I only don’t love it because of the VPL”; sometimes these things are true but sometimes even with the correct unmentionables a piece of clothing will look bad. To a lesser degree this is also true of shoes.

Cerebrally, shopping can be a mind fuck. Depending on your level of stress, joy, desperation, even hunger, you might not have the clearest eyes when shopping. I’m a big bargain shopper, and I get a bit of a “high” when I find a great deal. Like if I see a crazy deal at Marshalls, I’m high on savings when I try it on so I think this dress looks great and I’ve never looked better. Then I go to wear it two weeks later and my ass looks like a bag of wet laundry. And looking like a bag of wet laundry is a real mood killer.

I know the last thing you want to do when you get home is try on your purchases, but it’s worth it. There’s nothing worse than rushing to go out, throwing on a new outfit you thought would look amazing and looking like hot garbage. Actually there is one worse thing, rushing to go out, throwing on a new outfit you thought would look amazing and looking like hot garbage and now the return window has closed. Ok yes there are a lot of much worse things but just play along.

There is no better shopping tip than try your new clothes on ASAP, friends!

*you should still try things on in store, especially if an item is final sale

Interested in personal style? Check out 7 Reasons You Have A Closet Full Of Clothes And Nothing To Wear…