Sale: Kate Spade... Also a bit of info on chaining discounts

It's that time of year again! Kate Spade is offering 30% off in-store and online from now until Sunday, Oct 21st. All you have to do is use the coupon code: F12FFUS 
 
Using seasonal sales like this and a bit of planning can be an excellent way of scoring pricier clothing for a lot less. In order to keep from compulsively picking everything since it's on sale (discounts can really mess with one's ability to make good financial choices, right?) I tend to pre-identify the pieces I want to pick up, typically months prior when they're new arrivals. That way I know I'm buying things I really love rather than just being swayed by a big discount. By the time the fall sale hits, these pieces have usually already made it to the sale section, then by waiting just a bit longer for the Friends & Family sale I end up getting a double discount for my patience.

On top of that, I chained in a 7% discount from ebates.com. Ebates gives you additional discounts from online stores and then sends you a rebate check once every quarter. The percentage discount isn't huge, usually anywhere from 3-8%, but any bit helps.

Enough with the theory. Here's how it actually looks in practice: 

•  In this particular sale I picked up this adorable dress. I liked it when I saw in in-store (it's always nice to be able to do this if you eventually intend to buy online), but at $428 I wasn't ever going to pick it up at full price.

Cute, isn't it?!

• Months later it ended up in the sale section at $256 (or about 40% off). That was getting better, but still more than I wanted to pay. 
• Holding out for the Friends and Family sale (30% off of the sale price) dropped it down to a more approachable $179.
• Then adding in the Ebates rebate took another 7% off of the Friends & Family price.
• This gave me a final price of just under $167. That's just 39% of the original price.

Yes, I'm the first to admit that the final price is still not super cheap, but Kate Spade clothing holds up substantially better than most cheaper options, so I'll have it for much longer than a dress bought at a lower price point. To keep my clothing budget vaguely reasonable, I also make an active effort to buy less clothing overall. Once again, this goes to the idea of choosing to own less, but have what I own be higher quality pieces that will last a long time and be items that I won't tire of after a season or two of wearing.

Link: How to become better at detecting clothing quality

One of the best ways to save on clothing costs is to become better at noticing how a garment is constructed. These little details are what will tell you how well a piece of clothing will fit (or NOT fit as is so often the case) and how well it will hold up over time.

The cost savings are easy: the better made your clothing is, the longer it'll stay nice looking, the more flattering it's likely to be on your body, and the happier you'll be with it over time.

For those of us with some sewing experience, being able to spot the signs of a well made garment are relatively easy. But what if you don't have this experience? Often people will try the shortcut of just assuming that the more something costs, the better it's made. You know what sucks? This isn't always the case.

For today's link I've got a blog posting from Couture Allure Vintage Fashion that gives you some hints about what to look at when evaluating how well a shirt is made. It's a useful bit of insight for sewers and non-sewers alike.

Link: "What I Learned From Wearing 6 Items For a Month"

The Globe and Mail just featured an article called "What I Learned From Wearing 6 Items For a Month". Apparently, as a means of showing that you can actually make do with way less clothing than the average North American keeps in their closet, the writer challenged herself to only wear 6 different pieces of clothing (not including accessories and undergarments) for 30 days.

It's an interesting read for anyone who either has a closet stuffed with clothing or looks in their closet and, regardless of how much stuff is in there, always feels like they have nothing to wear. There's a great message in it that these types of people need to hear: when you're buying clothing, buy strategically.

It's not hard to keep your clothing budget low by only buying things that are super cheap, but that can be the easiest way to a pile of clothing that isn't flattering, is of low quality, doesn't match, and/or you don't love to wear. The trickier proposition, but the one that brings the most joy (and the least clutter) in the end, is to buy less things, but make sure the things that you buy fit beautifully, are made well so they'll last, make you giddy to wear, and, most importantly, all match each other.

Seriously, the matching thing is the secret to a budget wardrobe. If everything you own can pretty much be worn with everything else you own, then you've got an obscene amount of outfit combinations that all look great. Take a look at the six pieces of clothing picked for the Globe and Mail experiment. Everything in that capsule wardrobe can be worn together in a flattering way.

So why doesn't everyone do this? Well, there's a lot of reasons, but mostly because it's not the easiest thing to do. It's only in the last year or so that I've felt I've gotten remotely competent at this approach to fashion. It's hard, but it's pretty damn satisfying once you get it to work.

I figured an affordable, non-cluttered wardrobe that you love to wear fits in with the more expanded scope of this blog, so over the next few months I'm going to be writing posts about some of the tips I've used to work on building a functional, pared down wardrobe... it's a process, so we'll be taking it one small step at a time.