KTHNXBYE.

#1: Think about where you will be that day

A lot of the time I determine what outfit I will wear any given day based on where I’m going to be seen and who will see me. If I know I’ll be on campus all day or I have only one class or I’m going to be in the library, I go for a low-impact look. This is the day I utilize my go-to look which is somewhere along the lines of leggings, boots and oversized sweater with my hair up and a statement necklace or scarf (think this). I’ve struggled many a time over the fashion ethicality of this practice because everyone says “true style happens no matter where you are or who you are in front of blah blah blah”  and by doing this I often think to myself, “is this cheating? If I only make an effort when I’m going to be around other stylish people am I just faking my fashion?” but, I mean, sometimes a girl doesn’t want to pull out all the stops for a group of people who may not appreciate how totally awesome an outfit is. I’ll admit I save some of my best outfits for Thrusday--when I have the most classes, thus, the most exposure--Yeah I said it. So there. Conscience at ease...until the next time I opt for converse over kitten heels. Which brings me to my next point...

#2: Choose outfits with exchangeable parts

Any of my floormates could tell you that I have a substantial shoe collection ( I think it’s modest but that another story) and I have a very strict rule of leaving the house in one outfit and staying that way all day--no costume changes--but the dilemma I seem to be facing most often as I come to the end of my first semester in New York City is the choice between comfort and style. This age old struggle is never more present than in college. Sometimes I’ll try on an outfit where the central piece is the footwear and most times the footwear is heels. This is where it gets worse: I can tough out a painful heel. I like to think I’ve conditioned my feet enough to last a day in heels but then you have to factor in the fact that my school’s campus is mainly paved with old, uneven cobble stone which instantly ramps up the difficulty factor to tightrope caliber.

Proof of this comes at the expense of my pride. One day I was walking to class in my cute magenta kitten heels when suddenly one heel lodged into a crack and my foot came clean out of the shoe right in the middle of college walk. How embarrassing. I’m not the only one though, in fact, on the weekends I’ve made it a hobby to gauge how good the partying was on campus based on how many broken heels are stuck in the cobblestone at 6 am on a sunday.

So to avoid this, I try and save my outfits that require heels for the days when I know I’ll be doing the least walking. However if you are intense about your heel game, try and plan an outfit that fits with both a pair of heels and a pair of flat shoes. For instance, if I’m wearing black heels I might plan to swap them for my black lace-up boots for my longer treks that was you still get the general feel and color scheme of the look without compromising too much.

#3: Season Recycling

This one isn’t exactly a new concept but is something that I didn’t seriously consider until I got to college myself. Re-working Spring/Summer clothing for fall and winter can provide unexpected and refreshing rejuvenation to your wardrobe. If you’re like me and you come from a warm state, the ratio of warm clothing to cold clothing is devastatingly disproportionate which makes the practice of season recycling necessary. I clung to my high waisted denim shorts until the first snow hit New York because I was determined to maximize my warm weather clothing before I had to start getting bored of my winter clothing.Yet even now I’m finding ways to let my shorts make guest appearances. This is the magic of tights ladies and...gents? I never used to wear tights, an aversion that probably stemmed from the trauma my mom put me through as a child, forcing me to wear the most atrocious specimen Kmart carried. But now they are a staple of my wardrobe and should be of yours as well. I think my next purchase will be a pair of seamed tights like this.

#4: Clothing Swap

A cool way to revamp your wardrobe in college is to organize a dorm wide clothing swap. My hall hosted one today and even though I didn’t snag anything for myself, my friends left with some pretty cute stuff! This whole idea of a clothing swap is really killing two birds with one stone because you can drop off clothing you don’t want anymore and just pick up something you do like and be off, or you can just come by and pick something up without giving away something of your own and whatever is left over at the end of the swap gets donated to a local resale store. It’s a totally great and noncommittal way to shop, drop and swap.

I hope these tips help you in some way even if it is that it just made you think of a few of your own. I’d love to hear ‘em!