How many of you find yourself scrambling to get out of the house in the morning? Are you spending extra time trying to figure out what to wear to work that day? Or are you grabbing the first things you see without paying any attention to what they look like? I’ll be the first one to admit that somehow, the time in the morning before work seems to slip away faster than any point in the day, so making sure that I have a quick routine for getting dressed is a must. Note: THIS IS A GENDER NEUTRAL FORMULA! Check out these easy style tips to make sure you’re dressed to the T even when rushing out the door!
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Organize your closet! Being able to get dressed effortlessly takes a little prep work. Take the time to organize to make it easier on you when you’re in a time crunch. This means organize your closet by clothing type. For men I suggest grouping jeans, casual pants such as khakis, slacks, t shirts, polos or other short sleeve tops, casual button downs, formal button downs, blazers and jackets. For women I suggest grouping jeans, slacks, dresses, skirts, short sleeve blouses, long sleeve blouses and button downs, casual shirts, blazers, and jackets. Note: Do not hang your sweaters! This goes for women and men. If you hang your sweaters on a hanger, the fabric will stretch and create a weird divot where the hanger was. Fold your sweaters to avoid this. If you want to take this one step further and love your closet organized like I do, you can arrange the pieces by color within the groups, but that isn’t necessary.
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Outfits DO NOT have to match; they just have to go together! Please don’t think that you need to match your shirt to your pants to your shoes. This is absolutely not the case. A good rule of thumb is to have two neutral items with one pop of color or print, i.e. have a neutral pant and jacket with a colorful or printed blouse. Again, the neutrals do not have to be the same. ALL NEUTRALS GO WITH OTHER NEUTRALS! Neutral colors include: black, brown, tan, grey, navy, white, and denim (yes, your jeans count as a neutral). If you do want to be adventurous and wear multiple prints together, just make sure they are either a) in the same color palate, or b) minimal enough that they don’t clash. For instance, I wore a solid grey pencil skirt yesterday with a grey printed blouse, and a navy blazer with faint pinstripes on it. In this case I used both of those principles where my blouse and skirt were in the same color palate (not the exact same color) and my blazer was patterned, but it was minimal.
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Keep Shoes neutral: I have 3 go to pair of pumps for work. Black, nude, and navy. Men should have black and brown dress shoes at a minimum, and possibly a grey. Outside of work you can switch up the style, but you’re probably going to want to keep them in that neutral color palate. If you do choose to wear a bright colored shoe, I would probably keep the rest of your outfit relatively toned down. By all means wear a print, but don’t wear red shoes with a blue shirt and green pants. I always try to stick to one pop of color.
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Have a couple of go-to outfits you know work. I’d say have 3-5 outfits that you can fall back on if you aren’t feeling anything else. Keep those in the back of your mind and work from there. If you know that your khakis looks great with your pale blue shirt and navy blazer, think about trying a charcoal grey pant, or a printed top with hints of blue in it. The key is working with what you know to create multiple looks.
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Now, just mix and match! Once you have your closet organized and you know the rules about neutrals and prints, figure you’ll need to grab two to three pieces each morning. This is easy. These are YOUR CLOTHES. They already fit you well and you like them because you picked them. All you have to do is grab one bottom, one top, and an outer piece (weather permitting). Or for women, you may only need to pick a dress and jacket. Simple as that!