Build Your Signature Wardrobe

How to look good and feel confident in four steps

Had you been alive in 1935, you would have spent a fixed proportion of your annual income on a nine piece wardrobe consisting of two day dresses, an afternoon dress, evening dress, suit, coat and ski-suit or overcoat. But if you followed one magazine’s fashion advice you would have paid $216,000 for 240 items of clothing, 72 pairs of shoes plus accessories and hosiery in 2007.

Drawing on purchasing advice and statistics from the early twentieth-century, including the Great Depression and two World Wars, Build Your Signature Wardrobe explains how to shop strategically with a three to five-year wardrobe plan. It describes how to develop a signature look, choose good quality clothes that fit properly and take care of them so they last.

This Book Is For You If You Have Ever Wondered:

• How to build a wardrobe for the long-term, not just a season
• Where some of your clothing assumptions came from (e.g. one to wear and one in the wash)
• Why you wear the clothes you do
• Where bathing suits came from
• How many clothes your grandmother or great-grandmother owned when she was your age
• Why some colours never seem to work for you
• Why your clothes don’t fit properly
• Why wardrobe capsule advice conflicts (hint: there are three types of them)
• Why you should review your wardrobe regularly
• How to identify quality clothing on the rack and in the fitting room
• Why you continue to wear black when your soul cries out for some other colour
• Why you should wash new clothes before wearing them or why they aren’t as nice when you do

You Will Discover

1. How to set your budget: how much is a reasonable amount to spend and how to not waste it on clothes you don’t love and won’t wear. Plus, how to split your budget among family members, whether you need to economise and where the wisest areas to economise are.
2. What clothes are appropriate for you: the relevant and practical clothes for the life you lead right now (your Cinderella clothes) and what is not (Princess clothes) regardless of your age, size, location and occupation(s).
3. What your style is: not in the superficial sense of elegant or fashionable, but how to confidently and consistently present your authentic self to the world in a unique way that makes you happy while meeting the expectations of others.
4. Which clothes you need: how to decide which clothes and accessories (and how many) you need for the next three to five years, as well as how to put together the most practical and affordable wardrobe possible.

All so that you can confidently build your signature wardrobe.

About the Author’s Own Wardrobe Journey

While working for some of the world’s largest corporations in the UK and Australia, Alexandria Blaelock noticed that the way you dress influences how people perceive your abilities and how this affects your success in the workplace and at home. She discovered that by dressing smarter, you can not only save money and feel more confident but also develop a signature style that tells the world who you are and where you want to be.

After her kidney transplant, she dropped two dress sizes and following her first clothing review realised that more than half of her clothes had not been worn (ever), that there were too many boring black pieces and not enough exciting colour ones.

Her first post-transplant shopping trips were frustrating and disappointing because she was shopping from habit, not with intention. Realising she needed help, Alexandria devoured books, magazines and websites hoping she would find what she needed to know. And then she followed their advice making one bad decision (for her) after another; it became apparent that fashion advice benefits only advertisers and retailers, not consumers.

That first year, Alexandria spent $7,258.46 on 133 purchases, but 55 ($2,967.19) were mistakes, she only wore 13 ($691.48) frequently and by the end of the year, had disposed of 91 ($4,934.74) pieces.

She wondered what was wrong with her; other people didn’t seem to have any trouble buying clothes or getting dressed in the morning. Alexandria didn’t want to have to worry about this for the rest of her life, so she started researching what people did during the Great Depression and World Wars when you couldn’t just pop down to the store. And when her friends heard more about it, they became more interested and they all began to feel like they weren’t the only one who didn’t know what she was doing. So when they told her she should write a book, Alexandria began to think maybe she would.

That year she spent $3,381.50 on 44 garments and only 8 ($438.12) were mistakes.

Alexandria has spent the last year undertaking further (proper) research for this book; getting some science and evidence behind it. She said “somehow, when you see the history of fashion laid out decade by decade, it makes sense; particularly when you add in the developments in industrial and domestic technology”.

She spent $2,782.62 on 31 items of clothing with 2 ($134.33) mistakes.

Alexandria has found it very easy to follow the four step process developed through her research, and when she leaves her home, she is comfortable and confident, and her clothing reflects who she is. Last year she spent $1,763.04 on 37 garments with no mistakes.

Buy now and start building your wardrobe today.