How to Be a Fashionista with Thrift Store Clothing

Looking stylish is easy if you're rich-you can basically get someone else to do it for you. Looking both trendy and classy is more difficult if you're on a budget, but shopping at thrift stores can help you out.

When you go to a thrift store, it is easiest if you already have a loose shopping list of sorts-for instance if you're looking for blouses, or skirts, or black-colored clothing, or colorful accessories. However, a lot of finds come through serendipity, so it's best to just browse around too. An important thing is to avoid the current trends. Look for whatever is the opposite of the newest craze. Fashion tends to go in cycles, so whatever is out will most likely be in again before long. A true fashion queen knows to set the trends and stay ahead of them rather than following the crowd-plus you'll spend a lot less money if you aren't buying what everyone else is.

Look for interesting patterns and cuts. The goal is to make people believe you spent more money than you actually did. You can find a lot of great deals at a thrift store and a lot of fashionable clothing, but the best buys are the ones that look they are off a designer rack. Plus, you can be assured that no one else will have the same dress or skirt as you do.

One thing a fashionable shopper needs to be careful about when shopping at thrift stores is clothing with holes, stains or other imperfections. There is nothing more disappointing than to come home from a thrift shop with what you believe to be a cool find, only to realize that the zipper is non-functional or that there is a really odd stain on it that you had not seen before because you didn't check closely. Always carefully examine the outside and inside of used clothing you get at a thrift store. Try smelling the clothing, too, because you don't want any clothing with a strange smell that you can't wash out. Check for missing buttons, unraveled hems, missing beads, or other imperfections. Some of these you might be okay with, if you are willing to re-hem a dress by yourself, for instance, but if it is a problem you are not willing to deal with, you should avoid purchasing it.

You might want to get pieces of clothing and accessories that you can mix and match in different combinations. This will give you the biggest bang for your buck. It is usually easy to "disguise" articles of clothing as totally different ones by wearing them in different combinations. You will appear to have a much bigger wardrobe than you actually do.

Learn to sew a little bit and alter some of your own clothes, if you really want one-of-a-kind, designer-looking wear for dollars or even cents.

Lastly, have fun while you're doing it! Clothing is a big way to express your personality, and it's fun to be able to do this on the cheap.