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Charity Shop Tuesday: How to Buy Party Dresses from Charity Shops

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‘Tis the season to be sparkly, so today I thought I’d share some of my tips for thrifting party dresses!

 

How To Buy Party Dresses from Charity Shops
  • Start looking at the start of December, when charity shops put out the dresses they’ve been saving all year. It’s also good to check in May/June, which is when they get them out for school prom/university ball/wedding season.
  • If you’re shopping outside of these times, do ask the staff if they’ve got anything in the back that you might be interested in. When I volunteered at a charity shop we used to keep all the nice stuff that wouldn’t sell in the current season in bins/hanging up in the back.
  • Most charity shops will put all their formal and party dresses on the same rail, but it’s worth checking the casual rails in case something’s been misplaced.
  • Check carefully for stains. Dry cleaning is expensive so people often donate stuff that’s got a few marks on it.
  • That said, take ‘dry clean only’ instructions with a pinch of salt – google the fabric to see if it really has to be dry cleaned. I’ve bought lots of ‘dry clean only’ clothes in charity shops that have washed just fine by hand or on a low spin cycle in cool water.
  • Plain dresses can easily be dressed up with accessories, or embellished – add beading, sequins, ribbons – do whatever you want to make it your own.
  • Many fabrics can be dyed – so if the dress isn’t quite the right colour for you, check the label.
  • A looser-styled dress can easily be altered if it’s too big. If you need to, you can even get someone to sew you into it once you’ve got it on!
  • If you’re like me and are too small in the bust to hold up a strapless dress, you can add straps to strapless dresses, and/or sew a strapless bra inside the dress to help it stay up (here’s an example from Skunkboy).
  • If you buy a dress with a full skirt that’s got a bit deflated, you can wear a tulle petticoat underneath – or, if you don’t want to buy a petticoat, another skirt or two.
Let me know in the comments if you have any more tips! If it’s workwear you’re after, I share all my tips for shopping, both in charity shops and for new clothes, in my course Planning Your Work Wardrobe.

Why Being a ‘Mood Dresser’ Doesn’t Work

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As I explained in How a Messy Creative Learned to Love Advanced Planning, I am not a natural planner. I enjoy being creative and following my whims – especially when it comes to getting dressed in the morning! In an ideal world, I would be a mood-dresser. I would choose every outfit each morning so that it fit my mood perfectly.

But as fun as being a mood-dresser can be, I decided to become a planner instead. Mood dressing is just too stressful, and here’s three reasons why:

1. If I don’t know exactly what mood I’m in, I panic

Often, I wake up with an outfit idea in my head, or put one together when I’m in the shower. Often, but not always. Most days of the week, I just want to look and feel good and I don’t really care what colours are involved and what silhouette I’ll end up with. It’s those mornings that would lead me to stare at my wardrobe, trying to decide what I wanted to wear and how to put together an outfit. After five or more minutes of staring, I’d panic and put on whatever combination first sprang to mind.

Once I was dressed, I’d start feeling uncomfortable and unhappy with the outfit. A glance in the mirror would confirm my suspicions were correct. Something about it didn’t work. The colours weren’t coordinated, the silhouette was wrong, I looked too casual. So I’d decide to change skirt or swap cardigan – only to make the outfit worse! Inevitably, I’d glance at the clock, panic again, change back into the first outfit, then go to work feeling self-conscious and dissatisfied.

2. It’s time consuming

All that staring and panicking and changing takes up an enormous amount of time. Mornings are rushed enough without wasting time worrying about something as superficial as clothing.

I believe that it’s better to get this small detail taken care of in advance so that getting dressed can be as quick and pleasant as possible. Once the outfit planning is out of the way, mental energy is freed up for other purposes.

3. It doesn’t take practical considerations into account

My moody, creative mind didn’t have the slightest clue what clothes are clean. I’d frequently decide that my heart was absolutely set on wearing one particular item, for example, a pink top. Then the real trouble would begin, as I’d discover that none of the clothes I usually wore with that pink top were clean and would have to come up with a new combination on the spot.

Even if I was having one of those glorious mornings where I woke up with an outfit idea in my head, I’d usually find that I couldn’t wear exactly what I had imagined because the tights in my mental picture were in the wash. So I’d have to swap them for another pair, which would mean that the matching cardigan would also need to be replaced and more and more time would be wasted.

Mood dressing would only be a practical choice if I had an extra half hour every single day for choosing outfits – and if that half hour could not be used for any other task!


In the real world, there are better things I could do with that time, ways to spend it that leave me feeling satisfied instead of frustrated. That’s what lead me to create my system for wardrobe planning, and develop it into a course that can help you too.

My favourite thing about my Planning Your Work Wardrobe system is that you can adapt it to give yourself just enough flexibility to keep your inner mood-dresser happy, while still having a functional plan that will see you through morning after morning. So – are you a mood-dresser, a planner. or something in-between?