3 Ways to Refresh Your Style (without Shopping)

We could all refresh our style more often than we do. And I love a good shopping trip. But if you usually refresh your style by buying all new clothes, your credit card might prefer that you find a different way… Luckily, refreshing your look does not have to include shopping. 

Plus knowing how to refresh your style without shopping means you get to be more intentional about what you choose to buy. Wearing what you already own is the fastest way to find out what your personal style is so you can stop shopping out of desperation. 

With that out of the way, here are 3 credit card and personal style friendly, no-cost ways to refresh your style that you can start doing today. 

1. Rotate Your Wardrobe

Traditionally, you rotate your clothes by season. For example, at the end of summer you put away your summer dresses and pull out your fall cozy clothes. 

This is a classic solution to refreshing your wardrobe and style because by the time it’s hot enough for summer dresses again you haven’t seen them in months and they feel interesting again. 

However, you can also make up your own rotation schedule to continuously refresh your style throughout the year. Try pulling new things to the front of your closet once a week or once a month and keep cycling through your wardrobe so clothes you haven’t worn recently are always front and center.

If you think rotating your wardrobe might work for you, but you aren’t quite sure, check out: Should you change out your wardrobe with the seasons? It has all the pros and cons of changing out your wardrobe with the seasons, which can also generally be applied to non-seasonal wardrobe rotation too. 

Bonus tip: if you’re working with a capsule wardrobe, check out this post for capsule wardrobe specific suggestions.

Bonus Points: for combining this with building a wardrobe inventory.

2. Style Swap!

Another way to refresh your style is to swap with friends! You can think of this as rotating your wardrobe with someone else. 

This works especially well if you have friends that are a) of a similar size and b) have a “similar but different” style or have a style you’ve always wanted to try. 

Grab a friend and swap a couple items so you can both try with something new-to-you.

A couple tips to make swapping clothes with friends work smoothly: 

• Set clear expectations: how long are you swapping? How many items? What are the cleaning and care instructions and expectations? 
• Some people don’t like to swap clothes and that’s ok. Ask a different friend. Or stick to swapping accessories. 
• Start with a small number of items (1-3 pieces) for a short length of time (a couple days to a week). 

This is a great option to refresh your style because you get to try the new-to-you things you’ve borrowed. But you ALSO get new ideas about how to style the pieces you’ve loaned out. 

3. Try a Color Style Challenge 

I love a good wardrobe challenge, especially when your closet is calling for an injection of something different. So a third way to refresh your style is by embarking on a wardrobe challenge – specifically a clothing color challenge.

I define a wardrobe challenge as: any time you dress within a set of parameters for a specified amount of time. My year of self-made clothing was a wardrobe challenge. A 10×10 capsule wardrobe is a wardrobe challenge. Traveling with only a carry-on suitcase is also a wardrobe challenge. 

Wardrobe challenges can be a great way of engaging your creativity, especially if you keep the time limit short. 

So to refresh your style, try a clothing color challenge for a week (or even a long weekend). Set yourself a color-based style parameter and watch how this changes the way you see clothes you’ve had for ages.

For example, you could… 

• incorporate green into every outfit for a weekend (if you’re self conscious, try Saint Patrick’s Day weekend). 
• Or only wear neutrals. 
• Or wear no neutrals. 
• Or try a rainbow week (on Mondays we wear red, on Tuesdays we wear orange, on Wednesdays we wear pink, etc., etc.). 
• Or a vibrant week. 
• Or a muted week. 
• Or a pastels week. 

The options are limitless. 

You can be as bold or as subtle as you like. You’ll get to refresh your style and get a fresh perspective on the clothes already hanging in your closet. 

Those are just 3 out of countless ways to refresh your style without shopping

The options really are limitless. So if you want help figuring out how to refresh your style see if working together feels like the right option for you. I spend a lot of time helping people get out of style ruts.