• Aim for just two colours. Three max. Black and grey, for example, with a splash of white.
• When you find something you really like, consider buying a multi-year supply. The clothing industry keeps changing things. There’s a good chance that the comfortable pair of pants you just bought won’t be available in a few months. Ralph Nader famously did this with shoes and socks when he found a bargain. In the book Ralph Nader: A Biography, author Patricia Cronin Marcello says that Nader, in the late 1950s, bought a dozen pairs of shoes for $72 and four dozen pairs of socks for $16.80 from the Army Post Exchange at the end of his time in the U.S. Army.
• If you buy in bulk, you save money on shopping trips.
• Limit yourself to two styles of shirt (longsleeve and shortsleeve, for example) and two styles of pants (pleated and non-pleated, or long and short).
• Buy natural fibres. They are more comfortable.
• Have your shoes resoled rather than buying new ones.
• Buy shoes that are high-quality enough to allow resoling.
• Have just one colour of socks, in the same style. No mis-matched sock troubles. No being stuck with just one sock when the other develops a hole. If you feel you must, maybe two styles of socks — one for work, one for leisure.
• Buy one really good blazer. Haunt the second-hand shops for this. Visit a couple of times a week, and one in your size is sure to surface.
• Buy one really good suit. You might need to buy new. I’ve found the second-hand option with suits to be tough going.
• You may also need to buy ties new. I have not found the second-hand selection to be all that fashionable, even for me.
• Ignore people who say your fashion sense is crap. (A relative once loudly announced during a family gathering: You have [expletive] for clothes.)
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