Every mom understands that an inevitable shift happens the moment you find out you’re pregnant and shopping for yourself takes a back seat to shopping for your little babe. What happens is that your sense of style gets stuck in whatever year you saw that first faint positive. For me, that was 2007, which was virtual eons ago in the fashion world. Ever since then, my daily style consists of jeans and then black, black and more black.
Recently, I had the chance to update my look to this decade and add some color to my wardrobe as part of the Art of Fashion campaign with searsStyle and I knew exactly what I wanted to start with – the basics. I figure I can add some color punches here and there as I’m shopping for the littles, but the basics are much harder to justify spending some real cash on.
The basics for me during winter are a good pair of shoes, a nice wool coat, jeans, a sweater or two, colorful scarves, and a practical purse. I found all of that and more at the searsStyle website that helps you find the latest trends that work for your lifestyle and allow you to shop directly from the site. I really love that the searsStyle site is fully integrated with the main Sears site which saves you the headache of having to search again to find that awesome pair of jeans you fell in love with.
After I got an idea of what I was looking for, I went to my Shop Your Way page I set up earlier this year and created my “look” I was going for in a custom-made Art of Fashion catalog. It’s similar to an online pin board where you can add things you like, comment on what you like about certain items, mark items you already own, get recommendation and deals as well as see other’s favorite picks for inspiration.
You can filter your results by style, brand, color, price and more and it helps you find the exact style and price you’d like or you can simply check out other people’s catalogs to help break you out of your shopping rut. I love that there were so many things to inspire me as I dreamt up a new closet for myself and it was easy to find exactly what I was looking for and more.
I was mainly looking for some color infusion as I added to my Art of Fashion board to brighten up my dull black wardrobe. I was dreaming of reds, turquoise, yellow, and black as my basic color scheme and then from there I could add little pops of other colors that caught my eye. Starting from the bottom and working my way up, I began to add things to my catalog in a variety of styles ranging from tried-and-true classics to more daring fashions I would love to be able to pull off.
Once I had all of my inspiration, I was ready to hit the stores to see what I could find at my local Sears. Since 'tis the season of shopping, I was able to pop into a few of the Sears around me while finishing up my Christmas shopping, which was perfect because I was able to shop for a variety of people on my list at the same time I updated my look.
The first thing I found was some adorable red shoes with a small heel from Metaphor that I knew were perfect the moment I spotted them. Even though I’m not traditionally a heels kind of gal, it was a low heel and it wasn’t unmanageable to walk in. After I had the shoes I was dreaming of, I headed off to the jeans and was happy to see that they had the pair I had fallen in love with at the Lee Jeans Style Party in Seattle this fall.
Next up was tops, and, armed with my smartphone that I could access my Shop Your Way catalog with, I knew exactly what I wanted. I was looking for some colorful cardigans to go over tanktops and I found a ton of great options, all the way from cashmere to cotton cardis. I searched through the Kardashian Kollection, juniors and women's sections and found a ton of cute tops and sweaters that I loved {some of which I added to my catalog while shopping!}. I eventually settled on two colorful sweater choices that would be perfect for all the many gatherings coming up, I was all set.
But, since winter can be long and cold here in the Pacific Northwest, I also needed a good wool coat that I could dress up or down. I found the perfect short-waisted jacket from Bongo in the juniors section and loved that it had a little added flair to make it distinctive and fun, but not too much that it would be outdated in a few months. Even better was the price – at $19.99, it was less than what I normally spend on shirts!
I could have stopped there and would have had some great new pieces to mix and match, but every woman knows that when we’re talking fashion, we are also talking about accessories, so I decided to spend a little time adding some color pops that can go with my new look. I found an adorable scarf, some chunky beaded necklaces, and more that were perfect for my new look and then it was the moment I had been waiting for: purse shopping.
Since most of my purses are black, I was thinking bold this time around, and that for me meant turquoise or red. I wasn’t able to find any good turquoise styles, but I did find an awesome crossbody design from Covington that is as practical as it cute. Since my purse typically ends up a makeshift diaper bag, I was happy the one I chose had 10 pockets built right in that can keep me organized and sane with two young kiddos.
As an added bonus, my favorite feature of the bag is that the shoulder strap can be adjusted to sit crossbody or it can be tightened so you can wear it on one shoulder if you’d like. Extra special bonus for my daughter is that I found out that there is a mini version of my purse and I had to track it down for her so I could wrap it up for Christmas. My kid likes match-y match-y, so this is going to make her day when she realizes she has a purse just like mama's.
Once my purse shopping was done and my shopping complete, I felt like a new woman. My wardrobe was no longer colorless and dark, I had color infusion from head to toe! The best part is that it revitalized my old wardrobe and my new accessories can now brighten up anything in my closet.
With all the many shopping bags I brought home and all the different outfits I’ve been able to make, the most surprising thing is the low price I paid. I would have expected this kind of transformation to cost hundreds of dollars if not thousands, but when paired with Sears holiday sales, coupons, and my Shop Your Way reward balance, I spent less than $100 on everything – wow, right?
Want to create your own Art of Fashion board in time for the holidays? Head on over to your Shop Your Way and you can create a catalog simply by hovering over an item until you see the option “add to catalog”. From there you can create a board, a wishlist, or mark things you already own to help you shop or pass along to others who are shopping for you. By connecting your Facebook account to the Shop Your Way site you can interact with friends and family or you can choose to keep your profile private if you’d like.
Don’t have a Shop Your Way rewards card yet? Well, what are you waiting for? It’s totally free and it gives you rewards on everything you buy as well as promotional points just for shopping on certain days. They send periodic emails, including emailed receipts, but the emails are always relevant and are never spammy and you can control how many you receive by editing your email preferences. I just signed up in June and have earned 55,608 points to date, which equates to a whopping $55.60 and a whole lot of free shopping.
Want to see my entire shopping spree? Check out my Google+ album to see why I'm heading to Sears next time I need a wardrobe fix.
Check out searsStyle.com and shopyourway.com for your fashion inspiration this year. Like them on Facebook and follow on Twitter to find keep up to date on all their holiday deals.
I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This content has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and searsStyle. As always, all opinions are 100% ours. #CBias #SocialFabric #ArtofFashion
