Trendy High Fashion for Cheap: A How-To

Creating outfits consisting of cheap trendy clothes is difficult to do while avoiding selling your soul. Prior to traveling to the major fashion cities such as NYC, London, Paris, and Milan, I was pretty clueless. After living abroad for a while, I got an idea of how the locals could afford to dress so well. Here are some of the basic tips:

It's necessary to know at least the guidelines of the timeless, big city styles you find in the major fashion cities. You want to avoid looking as if you just strolled out of a midwestern Highschool. Most of the clothing you find aren't coated in huge, gaudy labels as can be seen on tastless mall clothing and fake designer gear. If you go for even, solid patterns and colors and pay attention to the silhouette (doesn't need to be slim, but rather well-fitting), you're already way ahead. Where can you find this stuff without spending a fortune?

One way to get high fashion, designer-brand clothing at a fraction of the full (and unaffordable) retail price is via sample sales. Even when living in a city where these sample sales are abundant, it can still be tough getting ahold of them. Fortunately, you can do it all online! Within recent years (and months) exclusive sample sales are starting to pop up on the internet. If you're interested in this, just google "internet sample sales" or similar keywords.

Even though this special type of sale offers great discounts, it can still be too costly. The way I've found most people get cheap trendy clothes is just picking the right retailers. There are a few, select stores that pay very close attention to high fashion trends in designing their lines. You'll be able to get nearly the exact same style high fashion brands offer at literally a tenth of the price. These shops are Zara, H&M, as well as Uniqlo, and occasionally Urban Outfitters. You should also look to American Apparel to offer the same styles - American Apparel offers a ton of plain, well fitting clothes for relatively cheap.

Things to avoid:

Stay Away from the mall! Virtually any clothing find within mall department stores is cut to fit awfully baggy, and unflatteringly. Most Americans are way overweight, and even these clothes are too big and awkward looking on most people. Also, stay away from designer clothes on auction sites like Ebay! Even though some items may appear to be legit (coming with hologrammed tags and whatnot), they're going to be fake and extremely low quality. If a manufacturer can make the clothes, surely they can make authentic looking tags, right?

Don't forget about thrift stores. If you have an eye for style or check up on what's going on in the fashion world, you can easily put together old or random clothes into stylish looks. I've seen a lot of people in NYC and abroad try this and it can work if you know what you're doing. For more fashion tips and secrets, visit our blog (below)