As I’ve mentioned before in Find Free Exercise, I’ve never worked in an office setting before. Since college, all of my jobs have been outside, so my daily “uniform” has drastically changed over the last few months. When I was working for an irrigation company, I could wear whatever I wanted, as long as I didn’t mind it getting covered in dirt, mud, blood, or water. So when I started there, I just wore some of my old clothes, and found additional cheap clothes at a local thrift store. Eventually, the clothes that I wore were absolutely trashed, but it didn’t matter because I spent the majority of my day digging trenches. After that, I held a job as a meter reader, where I was given a uniform. The best part about wearing the same uniform everyday is not having to worry about what you’re going to wear. It took all the stress out of the equation, which I absolutely appreciated.
Now, however, I work in an office building, and that means that I cannot wear my old stained dirty jeans, or the same uniform every day. Instead, I had to quickly build an affordable office wardrobe. This is how I did it.
First, I went through my closet and found all the clothes that I felt I could wear in this office setting. I knew that the dress code was not incredibly formal, but for the most part, I wanted to make sure that my pants weren’t offensive and my shirts were collared. This meant no ripped jeans, and no t-shirts. As I’m just a few years out of college, and seeing as how I spent the majority of my working career wearing a uniform and/or going shirtless, I did not have a lot of collared shirts. I had a couple of polos and two dress shirts. As for pants, after trying on a few pairs I realized that I either had to go very formal, or with a clean nice pair of jeans. I decided to go with the jeans on the first day, scope out what everyone else was wearing, and adjust as necessary.
Second, I purchased filler pieces. These are the pieces that I needed in order to make an outfit “work”. For example, I had a nice shirt that I could wear, but it required wearing a shirt underneath, so I needed to get a nice plain white t-shirt. Other examples of filler pieces could be: black socks, a belt, proper shoes, a light sweater, etc. Typically, they are not expensive purchases, but they are the small bits that really make an outfit “work”. Sometimes, it is all about the details.
Last, I purchased a couple of “big” articles of clothing. These were the most expensive pieces I purchased. As I only had a couple of shirts I felt were adequate for the job, I decided that I needed a couple of more. So I ended up buying two more button up collared shirts that fit me well. Between the two of them I probably paid about $100, but I figure that because they are not getting a lot of heavy use (see: irrigation), they would last me for quite some time. Now I have enough shirts that I can wear a different one every single day of the week, giving me just enough variety to keep me and my coworkers sane, but not so much that I wasted unnecessary money on an office wardrobe. If you think you need more, just remember that sometimes you can get away with wearing only six articles of clothing for a month without anyone noticing.
Here’s some additional tips for building your office wardrobe:
- Purchase pieces that you can mix and match. While rocking that fuschia miniskirt might seem like a good idea, it’s not something that you can wear with just anything. If you are starting from scratch, buy pants, shirts, and sweaters in colours that you can easily match to, like black, grey, or white.
- Minimalism is beautiful. While it might be tempting to rock as many accessories as possible (think: necklace, rings, watches, belts, headbands, etc), pick one and stick with it. Not only is it cheaper, it is also fashionable.
- Got some old clothes that no longer fit? Inherited some shirts from an older brother? Try getting them tailored instead of replacing them. Not only will it be cheaper than replacing the item, but a tailored shirt will always fit better than one that is straight off the shelf.
How did you build your inexpensive office wardrobe?
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Alan Schram writes about personal finance and his encounters with it in his everyday life. Alan is recently married and is looking to save money on expenses and reduce his debts.
Classic basics in neutral colors are the key to the whole thing for men and women. With my coloring black is perfect, with grey as my alternate. I have two pairs of dress pants in each colour. One hemmed for high heels, one for flats. I also have one dressy and one sporty black skirt and one black dress. My shoes and boots are all black. My one belt is black. My one purse is black. I have about a dozen black dressy tshirts, 3/4 sleeve shirts, sweaters and blouses. I have similar but smaller assortment in grey, white, and a couple of accent colors. The tshirts work in the summer and go under jackets and cardigans in cold months. I have about 6 jackets and 3-4 cardigan sweaters, in various colors but never a pattern. The jackets are generally bold colors but the pants and shirt underneath are my “uniform” of black, grey or white. I accessorize with very few pieces of jewlery. All are silver and in simple styles. I have a fair selection of scarves and wraps in bold colours.
I’ll never be accused of being a trend setter but I think I always look put together without it costing a fortune. I buy a limited color range of classic, quality pieces on sale and they last for years. In the past year I’ve only bought a 3pkg of socks, a tshirt (yes black) and a thrift store sweater (grey). Total $15.
For my birthday I received a clothing store gift card. I’ll be looking for some new scarves and wrap/shawls to accessorize what I already have. Nothing I have is worn so nothing needs replacing, but I’d like the option of creating some new combinations.
Oh, anything worn next to my body must be machine washable. Jackets are the only exception – I can usually get many wearings out of those.
Second post – husband version this time.
For 25yrs my husband worked in hightech and wore black jeans and a golfshirt every day. For the final 10yrs of that he was a manager and that was still the normal dress code.
Now he’s in a traditional office setting and must wear a shirt, tie and dress pants at the office. When he’s at a customer site he adds a jacket. It’s been a total culture shock to switch to having a proper business wardrobe.
He chose one jacket in a black/grey mix. He has black, grey and beige dress pants which all go with the jacket. One black belt. One pair of black dress shoes. He started with 5 shirts so he could wear a fresh one each day – white, cream, beige, blue and grey. He recently added a dark blue and a light purple to the mix.
To maximize the combinations he has about 12-15 ties. In order to qualify a tie must go with at least 3 of his shirts.
Since his jeans and ~20 golf shirts are no longer his work clothing, he now has a very large weekend wardrobe. It will take years to wear those things out, and he may never buy another golf shirt at this rate.
I really learned a lot. mothballs are really awful. I associate them with my grandparents, because it seems that only older people use them. It will always be cedar. I’d like to see an article board and how to do it properly and efficiently. It takes me half an hour to iron a shirt and still does not look very good. How to Build Your Wardrobe Part IV – Protection, conservation and cleaning of clothes Great article.
Thanks Again
I focus on deals during festive season. One can easily pick-up plain, stripes or simple checks for office with great discounts on your favorite brand.
Make sure you know your measurements (neck, waist, and leg) so you can take advantage of sales and deals if you stumble on them.
I wear a shirt & tie every day, and I’ve come to the conclusion that nobody really notices what I wear unless it’s not done right.