A Paper Bag Princess

There’s a part about fashion that I wanted to discuss. It’s kind of like the elephant in the room that everyone is thinking about but doesn’t want discuss – the price of clothes. If you think that you need expensive clothes and lots of money to be a blogger, you’re not the only one. I thought that way too. I used to think that the popular bloggers who wore designer brands and travelled the world were only popular because of the designers that they wore. That isn’t the case.

Granted that yes, everybody loves a good designer bag or a beautiful pair of shoes, but it’s simply not feasible to be spending that much money on your wardrobe when you’re probably going to stop wearing everything that you bought this season once the next year rolls around. So yes, having pretty things can definitely make you popular, but there are tons of bloggers with money out there who aren’t getting big either.

When I was younger, I was hooked on Robert Munsch books and my one favorites was The Paper Bag Princess. At the time, all of the books that I read had lessons to them and the lesson found in this one was that it’s not what you wear that’s important, but how you are on the inside.

I’m not trying to get sappy and say that you have to be a genuine person in order to make a connection with your readers (but that very much so is the case). What I’m saying is that you could have all the designer clothes in the world, but if you don’t have personal style, people won’t take a second glance at you.

There’s an art to fashion where someone can take clothes from a thrift store and style them in a way that makes it look like you spent $1000 on everything.  Now that’s true style. I’m not exactly one to compose my entire wardrobe out of second hand pieces (the thought of wearing clothes that someone else has worn before kinda irks me a little bit), but I don’t purchase designer pieces either – at least when it comes to clothes.

I prefer to mix and match pieces from both low and mid-range end stores (ie. Forever 21 and H&M for low-range, ZARA and Aritzia for mid-range) to get both quality and design out of my purchase. Committing to a new trend when you don’t have the luxury of spending lots of extra money on clothes can be a little disheartening. I typically let all of my trendy pieces be purchased from the lower-range brands where I won’t regret if I don’t wear the pieces the following season.

Clothes are what you change everyday, but when it comes to shoes, bags and accessories, they can be used multiple times without being switched. I also fully believe in having a well crafted bag that doesn’t show wear-and-tear after only wearing it for the third time. And the same goes for shoes. You can’t have your shoes breaking down on you after you spend a couple of days walking around in them.

So although it’s important to be well dressed, with the right style, you can easily make anything look good – even a paper bag. You don’t need to spend a fortune on your clothes, but if you really need to splurge on something, I’d recommend it to be something that you can get a lot of wear out of.

Top – Forever 21 | Culottes – Urban Outfitters | Shoes – Adidas