 Welcome back to my channel guys, it's Shakira Coco Styles and on this channel we talk about beauty, fashion, lifestyle, and styling. Today I wanted to do something a little bit different and this is for my ladies who actually are in the process of trying to build quote unquote their dream wardrobe, right? I wanted to talk about some of the things that you should be doing and should not be doing when you are trying to build a wardrobe opposed to having just a closet full of clothes, right? So as a style coach, I do speak to clients about this all the time. When I do their closet purge or the analysis, I notice so many things like clothes with tags on them that they haven't worn in months, even years that they purchased when they were shopping a sale or inspiration clothes guys. You know those inspiration clothes where we're like, hey, I'm going to lose this last 10 pounds, I'm going to get into this outfit. Those are all bad, bad things. When you're trying to build a wardrobe, you should always know what your end goal is and for myself, I'm tall so we already have like certain struggles that average height women do not have and that is the best quality clothes, tons of brands that cater to us and finding things that actually fit our frame. So for us, we have to do a little bit more digging when it comes to trying to build a nice wardrobe. Now as a girl who is six feet tall, I have not shopped 12 girl brands ever and I've said this before. Now that I know that they exist, it's just not my type of clothes. So I'm going to continue to buy things that are from regular brands, make them work for me. If it's too small, of course, you know, I get things tailored. I get things cropped. Listen, I don't want to look like everybody else. But you know, it's difficult for tall women. But still, even though I have those struggles building my wardrobe, I still keep certain things in my mind. So I'm going to jump right into it. Let's take notes. The first thing is I want to always remember what my end goal is. How do I want my wardrobe to look? Do I want a certain color aesthetic? Do I want to be able to come in my closet, grab something and go, right? Grab a pair of shoes and go. Do I want that? Or do I want a bunch of trendy items? Trendy items mean a certain colors that are trendy, right? Things that may go out next season and I have to replace. Do I want to spend that much money? So I always say, think about that first. Are you in that place where you want a bunch of trendy things and you want to switch it out every season? If you're not, definitely go the opposite way. The second thing I always say is do inventory on your wardrobe. See what you have. I have tons of stuff here, over here, over there, have shoes there. But I always, before I purchase something, sweaters and shirts and stuff, you're always going to need, right? Because you can wear your same jeans and skirts, trousers over and over, but the top is different. No one's going to know that you're having the same bottom. So tops and things I always buy, but I'm still cautious about certain things that I buy. Now, the shirt that I have on, it is a little bit more in your face and trendy, so you probably won't see me wear this again until probably next year. And if I do wear it again this year, I'm going to wear it completely different, like completely different. So this is much more loud opposed to a regular black sweater, right? Like I said, you want to make sure you do inventory. See what you need. See what needs to get out of your wardrobe. That does not fit this new style and keep what needs to be kept. Things that are in great condition that you actually are not into anymore, like the style, sell it, put it on Poshmark, put it on all these other Makari, all those sites, sell it, right? If you have something in your wardrobe that you love that's too big, get it tailored. All right? So this is a good place to start when you start trying to build that foundation. Foundation is key, guys, which leads me into your wardrobe essentials. Essentials. You guys, some people call it basics. Essentials are the things that keep your wardrobe functioning, okay? Functioning meaning I can come in here, I can grab a pair of jeans, I can grab a white button-up shirt, I can put it on with some pumps, simple outfit with a hat. That is an essential is that white button-up and those denim jeans, right? If you're not into pumps, I'm sure you have some sort of sandal or some sort of booty, something, right? But those two pieces are essential and guess what? You can definitely wear them a ton of ways. So make sure you have your essentials in your wardrobe. If you guys think it was too loud, my air is on. All right, so you have your essentials now. Now you're like, okay, I want to start adding in the pieces that I absolutely love. What do I do? You start browsing around for the brands that cater to you, right? Your style, your new wardrobe aesthetic, right? All brands are not created equally. We know this. If you want to buy things that are more pricey and better quality, you're not going to shop at Fashion Nova. You know what I mean? If you are in the middle, middle area, you may do Zara, you may do Mango, you may do who else? Brands that are like in the medium price range but have decent prices, decent quality clothes. All right. So you're going to find those brands that you actually like and love. Then you're going to actually go ahead and browse online, create shopping lists because you're going to figure out what you do not have and what you need. You're going to create these shopping lists. Then you're going to go into these stores or you're going to order it online. If you have the store in your area, I would recommend going in and trying on a ton of stuff. Even things you don't think you would like, you'd be surprised how certain designers and certain brands make things that just look good on your body. So it's just a good idea to go in and just play dress up, guys. All right. So once you have that, you play dress up, you have your shopping list. Now you're going to go shopping for your stuff. Here's where the strategy and the planning comes into place. Oh, gosh, guys. So think about it like this. Sales shopping, you guys know I'm not for the sales shopping. However, if you see any of your essential items on sale and they are a good quality, get them, okay? If there's something that you really want that has been on your wish list for a while and it goes on sale, get it, okay? Sales shopping does not mean, hey, all of these emails I'm getting, I'm going to go and buy everything that I see. We're not going to do that. We're getting out of that phase and that era. It does absolutely nothing for your wardrobe and it actually makes getting dressed worse, okay? Because you're buying things, got tags on it, you don't wear it. I used to be a person to buy things and because I'm from New York, I never purchased things in like outfits per se, like I wouldn't buy like an outfit and I'm still that way to this day. I'll see like a really nice piece and that's it and I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to wear it with. But then when I get home, I have so many pieces that are either essential items or something else and I'm like, I can put this together, right? So make sure you're buying things that are on sale that are essentials and things that you really, really want because if you're buying things on sale just because it's on sale, you're not going to wear it, all right? So after you get all your items, you've shopped, you've did some little bit of sales shopping for the good things, you have a great, great foundation right now and now you can organize your closet, okay? And I don't want this to sound very like, like I'm talking to a client but an organized closet really helps guys. If you have the space for a separate room, do it. If you don't and you just have like a small walk-in closet, organize it the best that you can, make it a place where you feel like you like going into there, right? If you are a New Yorker and you have those little small closets, trust me, I had two of them and to be quite honest, this is what I did because it's just a narrow closet. You can always get your super, because that's what we call them, your super to put an extra bar that way you are utilizing your top and your bottom space. If you don't do that, you can add shelves at the bottom, you can put your shoes in there, get rid of your boxes and just maximize the space, right? Because one thing you don't want to do is have a bunch of clothes and no space to put it. And then what happens is things start to fall down, you don't get to see that your stuff fell down, you don't remember what you have, it happens, right? So try not to be too cluttered with your stuff and only buy things that you're actually going to wear, guys. Sometimes we have a closet full of clothes and never really wear the stuff. I have skirts in here that I have never worn and I bought them from Zara so many years ago. But let me tell you why I haven't worn them. They're really nice. I, oh no, actually I did wear them. I wore one. I wore one. Yeah, I did. The zipper is silver so I'm going to get my tailor, let me show you guys actually. I'm not really a silver person but I was going to get my tailor to come in here and change my zipper, I was going to get her to come in here and change my zipper to like, I don't know, black maybe, I don't know, silver's okay but I'm not really a silver person. So that's the only reason why I haven't worn this one. The other one is a green and I just kind of made it work. But I don't have too many things that I have not worn, right? And the final, final thing is to start implementing everything and wearing everything. If you learned a style tip along your whole journey, you want to start implementing that, right? Something as simple as rolling up your sleeves, right? Something as simple as a tuck can definitely change the way your outfit looks, all right? Now I won't say, I won't say this, when it comes to like things that are like, like rolling up your sleeves, as a tall woman, if I buy something and it's like too short here, I'm going to get it cropped, okay? Because I'm just like, I don't even want to scrunch the sleeves. Let me just make it to a whole other jacket. Hence why I did that to that Zara jacket, right? And those two leather jackets, because it was just pointless to me. It was like a little tight and stuff here. So I just had her crop the sleeves and just got creative. So instead of me letting my height work against me, I'm working with my height and making things work for my body, buying things that look good on my body. So this is why I'm not really a trendy person. I've never really been a trendy person because I don't, I'm not into like just buying clothes and then rebind them over and over. But buy things that work well with your body. I don't know how many times I can say this, trends are great guys, but you have to be realistic when it comes to how your body is shaped, how tall are you, all those things. Some average height girls can't wear some things from some brands because they make them really large, right? So we have to get creative and start buying clothes and wearing them how we want to wear them as long as they look good on our body types. Some line is I can't wear something that somebody who is 5'2' wears, it's just not going to happen. So instead of me trying to mimic someone else's style, I just buy things that work with my body guys, super, super, super, super simple. So those are my quick little tips guys. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I just wanted to come over here and help you guys build this wardrobe that you desire guys. Trust me, I've been there and I'll pop in a picture somewhere of what I have on today. The sweater is from Sakai. Now, this is a good sale. This sweater was like a thousand dollars, okay? But let me tell you, it went on. I was not going to buy it, like I was not paying my money for that. I just wasn't going to do it. But I put it in my wish list just to look at it, right? Hell, like super sale. So that was a win. On my skirt, you guys can't even see my skirt. But I have on this Frankie shop. I'll pop in a picture. This Frankie shop, like satin, pat and leather skirt. The thing about the skirt is the skirt only has one pocket. I've never purchased anything from a Frankie shop like that or anywhere. It has one pocket. The other side has a zipper. It's just very, very weird. I was feeling all day, no pocket. But yeah, so if you're interested in the skirt, just know that when you get it, it has one single pocket. But if you like videos like this, please comment below. And if you stay to the end of this video, please comment Coco. We see you. And guys, don't forget to follow me on Instagram. My Coco styles NYC and Coco styles NY. And guys, you know, I have a style blog. I put our articles twice a month now. And it's Coco styles NYC.com in my style services. Coco styles NY.com. And you guys know I'm on the sick talk Coco styles NYC. And I will catch you guys in the next one. Bye guys.