The Everyday Icon Style Podcast

Episode 161: The Power of Investing in Timeless, High-Quality Clothing

• Tiffany Howard

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Ever wondered why your wardrobe feels cluttered despite constant shopping? in this enlightening episode, we uncover the transformative power of investing in high-quality, timeless clothing over fast fashion fads. This episode is a refreshing departure from our recent heavier topics, focusing on how upgrading where you shop can elevate your style and streamline your wardrobe. We'll discuss the significant differences between fast fashion brands like Shein and H&M and more durable, classic options from J.Crew and Banana Republic. Get ready to embrace a new mindset that prioritizes superior craftsmanship and long-lasting pieces.

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

10 Steps To A Stylish, Organized Wardrobe: https://bit.ly/3LeeB7Z


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LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/tiffany-howard-8b

Instagram: https://bit.ly/3VwhNlB

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Speaker 1:

Ignite your style with the Everyday Icon Style Podcast. I'm Tiffany, your style navigator and confidant here to lead women in corporate America on the quest to discover their timeless style. Let's revolutionize your wardrobe, empower your confidence and embrace your inner icon. Are you ready to redefine your corporate chic? Then let's get started. Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed by your wardrobe? I've got just the thing for you. Download my free guide Stylish, organized Wardrobe Made Easy and discover 10 simple steps to declutter, identify key pieces and create a style that's uniquely yours. Head to the description box of this episode to grab your copy to start your journey towards a more stylish, elevated and organized you.

Speaker 1:

So the last few podcast episodes have been a little heavy with letting go of clothes, the 80-20 rule. If you haven't listened to any of those, I highly recommend that you go back and listen to episodes 158, 159, 160, and this one this one, of course, but I want you to go back and listen to those as well. So today we're going to keep it a little light, quick and easy and quick to the point, and talk about the benefits of investing in high-quality, timeless pieces instead of investing in fast fashion. But before we can even do that, first, let's define them so fast fashion. It refers to the rapid production of inexpensive clothing that mirrors the latest trends. We want to stay away from trends now. These items are often made from low quality materials and are designed to be worn for a short period of time. The price of the outfits, shoes, whatever you buy explains it all. So a few stores would be Shein, h&m, fashion Nova and Forever 21, just to name a few. In contrast, timeless pieces, these are classic clothing items that never go out of style. They are made from higher quality materials and superior craftsmanship. They are designed to last for years, if not decades.

Speaker 1:

Your JCrews department stores, and most recently I found one watching one of my favorite YouTubers. Her name is Aaliyah Space that's the name of her channel and she had one on there called Riona she. The trousers she got from there looked spectacular, so I'm definitely going to try a pair of those out now with this. This is how I kind of like to see this. We've outgrown fast fashion. Now. It's good in a clutch, but we are now at a phase in our lives where we need to upgrade, where we shop as opposed to shopping in fast fashion. So, instead of going to Fashion Nova, go to Banana Republic If not the Banana Republic, they have the Banana Republic outlet Two of my favorite stores In order to get the look and the style that we want. That looks effortless, that is classic, that is timeless.

Speaker 1:

You've heard it sometimes called old money, whatever, you have to graduate and you have to change your where you shop, which is probably hindering you, and you're probably trying to figure out why can't I put my style together. This has a lot to do with it. It's where we shop. So we have to begin to change our mindset about where we shop. So if you want me to go into further detail about that, let me know over on Instagram and I'll be sure to create an episode to go deeper.

Speaker 1:

So what are the benefits of investing in quality pieces? Well, the first I can tell you is time and money, obviously, but let's find a few other things, of course. So one the durability. High quality clothing is built to last Money. You're not going out and buying something every three to six months. You may have to replace it every two to three, five years, at least a minimum of five, right? So now you can put that money towards investing in other quality pieces and you'll be able to begin to see it's like oh, I'm not throwing a lot of clothes away every time I do my audits during the transition of seasons, because if I am, it might be because of sizing, it might be because it's damaged things of those natures, not because it's gone out of style. I've only been able to wear it twice after two washings. No, they're built to last and these pieces, they're crafted with better materials, construction techniques of how the clothes are structured and they're ensuring that they withstand the test of time and frequent wear, because quality pieces are built to be worn multiple times. That's where the whole core wardrobe where I like to use the term core wardrobe, which is very similar to a capsule wardrobe um, but you with a core wardrobe, you have a plethora, you have a lot more, you can buy a lot more clothes. I'll say that, um, with a core wardrobe, and you can literally just build a wardrobe off of that.

Speaker 1:

The next is the timeless appeal Classic pieces like a tailored blazer or a crisp shirt. They remain stylish all the time. They're not trendy, they're something, they're classic pieces that you will wear all of the time, that you can get a lot of multiple uses out of them. We'll take the white shirt, for example. You can wear that in the summertime with some shorts. You can wear it in the fall with jeans and a sweater. You can wear it in the wintertime. You can layer it underneath a sweater. You can put on some wool trousers with it. It's multifunctional. It's something that you can wear all year round and helps transition you to where you need to go when it comes to your style. So this is where that comes into play.

Speaker 1:

Also, the versatility of it, and I kind of touched on that. They're more versatile and they allow you to mix and match items to create multiple outfits. So when you're dealing with fast fashion, you can only really wear them with a certain amount of clothes, a certain amount of items. But when you're dealing with high quality investment pieces, you are now able to create five or six outfits from maybe four or five pieces of clothing. Four or five pieces of clothing.

Speaker 1:

That's how we need to begin to look at things, especially with the mixing and the matching of clothes.

Speaker 1:

You know, when you open your closet, it should be something to where you can just go in there, close your eyes and pick a shirt, pick some pants and it's going to go because you have a color palette, you have your core wardrobe and everything is organized in such a way that you can't miss with what you put on and you will always look effortlessly put together when doing this. So what I highly recommend when you are thinking about quality and investment pieces, it all starts with you going into your closet and figuring out what it is that you have and I'm pretty sure you have some good quality pieces in there already and you want to take a look at them and you want to kind of help, kind of guide that along. And I think what I'll do in one of the future episodes is take you on a journey of how to actually go through and do that from what you should look for not what you should look for, but outgrowing your stores or utilizing the colors. I think we underestimate that when we take our quality pieces, the types of color palettes that you should look for, because color brings everything together and they're not boring. I think we sometimes think fast fashion is fun, it's cute, it is, it has its place. But having this core investment wardrobe that you have, which is your foundation, now you can bring that extra 15 percent, which is trendy pieces, which a good store. I guess you could kind of even say would be like your H&M, that you could kind of bring in and sprinkle in to where they look like they're timeless capsule, not capsule but they can lean more towards the elevated type look as opposed to the trendy look, because with trends you have to be very careful, because trends are here today, gone tomorrow.

Speaker 1:

So with all that, I just wanted to do this episode today. To just begin, I just want to open the conversation about where we're going with our style, especially as corporate professionals. We have busy lives and we don't always have time to get dressed. We have work. If you own a business, if you have your family, all of that, your extracurricular activities, your organizations, we don't always have time to always worry about what it is that we have to wear. You should be able to go in, like I said, with your eyes closed and pull, pull something out together, and it's always going to hit every single time. So I hope you enjoyed today's episode and I hope you think about it and let me know your thoughts of what you think about quality versus fast fashion items over on my Instagram it's in the description box here below and let me know your thoughts of today's episode. With all of that being said, I hope you guys have an amazing rest of your day, Stay healthy, stay safe, and I will talk to you guys next week in the next episode.