Look Great and Avoid Some Common Fashion Errors

Short jeans, pock­et­less pock­ets, embar­rass­ing biki­ni lines and dull out­fits are some of the many fash­ion errors made every day. Are you mak­ing them? Read on and dis­cov­er some com­mon fash­ion errors and how to avoid them.

1- When Short Is Too Short

Worn the right way, short jeans can look fab­u­lous. What if your jeans are too short? Short jeans can leave too much skin between footwear and the hem of the jeans. You’ll know what I mean. Put on your jeans, look in the mir­ror, and you’ll see that too much of your ankle is on display.

• What’s The Solution?

Wear ankle-high boots to reduce the gap between footwear and jeans. This helps to cre­ate a con­trast between leather and denim. Try high socks or black tights and pair them with black shoes. If you’re feel­ing a lit­tle zany and want to go all out, pull on some socks and shoes in loud or con­trast­ing colours. Hel­lo, world! Also, keep in mind the weath­er. Open shoes can look fab­u­lous if it’s not too cold. Think twice about wear­ing shoes that close com­plete­ly around the ankles as this can cause a stark con­trast with the hem of the jeans — it’s a lit­tle too harsh.

• What About This Option?

Show some skin from toe to ankle and blend the look all the way to the bot­tom of the jeans. Done some pumps, bal­leri­nas or glad­i­a­tor sandals. Go for the last option and remem­ber that what you do on earth echoes in eternity!

2- Oh Dear…What A Mess!

Anoth­er com­mon fash­ion error is to wear an out­fit that looks messy.

• How Does This Happen?

Usu­al­ly, when an out­fit has too much. Too much of every­thing. A lot is going on, and every item is get­ting in every­thing else’s way. A quick way to rem­e­dy this sit­u­a­tion is to remove one or two items. Before step­ping out, review your­self care­ful­ly and decide which items can go. 

• Neutralize

Anoth­er solu­tion to this prob­lem is to neu­tral­ize one piece of your out­fit. It’s tempt­ing to opt for a state­ment tex­ture, print and state­ment jew­ellery, but that’s far too busy. So, ditch the state­ment tex­ture. For exam­ple, instead of wear­ing faux fur, wear a faux leather jack­et. Alter­na­tive­ly, you could swap the print for some­thing neutral.

• “One Level, One Statement.”

This handy lit­tle phrase is worth remem­ber­ing. It means that each lev­el of the body should have only one state­ment. So, there should nev­er be more than two state­ments in an out­fit, and these state­ments should not be touch­ing. How does this work? Well, if you want to make a state­ment with your hat, make anoth­er state­ment with your belt, because it’s on anoth­er level. If you love, love, love your hat, don’t pair it with a state­ment neck­lace – those two items are essen­tial­ly touching. As an exam­ple of how to bal­ance state­ments, pair a love­ly neck­lace with your shoes, as those two items are on dif­fer­ent levels.

3- Deep, Deep Pockets

Some peo­ple have deep pock­ets. Some jeans have even deep­er pock­ets – or so it seems. Alas, they’re not deep pock­ets, after all, they’re actu­al­ly fake pock­ets. What?! So that’s why my receipts and coins and oth­er items keep falling onto the floor. I don’t have a hole in my pock­et, dear Liza; I just thought the pock­ets in my jeans were pock­ets, not sim­ply attached for decoration. Solu­tion; try before you buy. If you want pock­ets in your jeans, make sure you thor­ough­ly test the jeans before­hand or read the fine print if you’re shop­ping online. If you make a mis­take and buy the pock­et­less jeans, you might need deep pock­ets to buy anoth­er pair…with actu­al pocket.

4- Bashful Bikini Blushes

Ooooh nooo!! The pat­tern of the beau­ti­ful new biki­ni you wore to the beach is etched all over your skin, in the form of a deep tan or red-hot sunburn. Imme­di­ate solu­tion – cov­er it up with cloth­ing. Pro­tect your van­i­ty and your skin. Next time, wear more sun­block or run for the shade.

5- Dull & Duller

Even the word ‘dull’ sounds ‘dull,’ so you know this is a major fash­ion faux pas. The out­fit looks drab, bor­ing, sullen and unlive­ly. It didn’t look that way in your mind when you were cre­at­ing the out­fit. How did it all go so wrong?!

• Intensify

To solve the prob­lem of a dull out­fit, the key is to ‘inten­si­fy.’ Add prints, colours, state­ment tex­tures and acces­sories. Dive into your clos­et, your draws and your cre­ative spir­it, and locate some pieces which will bring life to your flatlin­ing outfit. You could add a colour­ful jack­et, or reach for the trusty scarf. The scarf is a valu­able fash­ion item that can change any out­fit in an instant and is easy to throw on or off as the need arises.

6- The Price Ain’t Right

Sure­ly that’s a mis­take, you say to your­self. That price, for that item? No. As crazy as it seems though, many fash­ion pieces that look ghast­ly, torn, stained, ripped or not even fin­ished, sell for ridicu­lous amounts of money. Some­one must like them, and some­one is will­ing to pay for them. The solu­tion, if you think the price is crazy, don’t you be crazy. Please don’t buy it.

7- Roll Your Sleeves Up

Roll those sleeves up and get to work. Actu­al­ly, don’t lit­er­al­ly roll them up, because short sleeves are anoth­er fash­ion error. Is this get­ting confusing? Ok, let’s start again. Be care­ful wear­ing short sleeves. It’s a hard look to pull off, and many peo­ple sim­ply get it wrong. One, short sleeves are ter­ri­bly imprac­ti­cal and illog­i­cal for cold weather. Let’s face it; no one ever took goose­bumps down a cat­walk. Short sleeves are a big error when car­ried on a jacket. To solve this prob­lem, and to be able to get away with wear­ing a jack­et with short sleeves, try these tips. Wear long gloves under the jack­et – very classy. Or, throw on a long-sleeved top under­neath the jacket. You could style a top in the same colour as the jack­et. If you want to shine, go for a top that is a dif­fer­ent colour from the jacket. Fur­ther tips for beat­ing the cold in a short-sleeved jack­et include lay­er­ing with an invis­i­ble jack­et under­neath or a cozy cardigan.

8- The Ill-Fitting Fitting Room

It just won’t go. It won’t go over my head, and I can’t get it on. We’ve all had this prob­lem in the fit­ting room, haven’t we? It makes you feel a bit ridicu­lous and reminds you of a tod­dler try­ing to dress themselves. You’re not alone, and there is a solu­tion. Take a friend. When an item of cloth­ing won’t go on, and you feel like you have to be a con­tor­tion­ist to twist your­self into it, ask a friend to come and help you get it on. Don’t wor­ry, that’s what they’re there for, and it should make a hilar­i­ous sto­ry next time you go for cof­fee. Plus, don’t be sur­prised if you get asked to return the favour one day!

9- Time Wounds All Heels

…and heels wound all feet, and legs, and toes. Yet still, we wear them. On the one hand, they tor­ture us; on the oth­er hand, they accen­tu­ate our ankle and calves, they look pro­fes­sion­al, and offer some of us a few extra inch­es of height – but my gosh, they can hurt! A major fash­ion faux pas con­cern­ing heels is wear­ing them with­out prac­tice. Tot­ter­ing unbal­anced in high heels robs a woman of her dig­ni­ty. Wear­ing heels that are too high is anoth­er lam­en­ta­ble error. Prac­tise before step­ping out in public. Solu­tion? You could just not wear them, but some­times this isn’t pos­si­ble. So, wear gel pads or ban­dages to pro­tect cer­tain parts of your feet. Car­ry slip­pers or alter­na­tive footwear, which you can change at your ear­li­est convenience. You could always take them off and walk bare feet, but this can be dan­ger­ous and is akin to a walk of shame. Not a good look! Time does wound all heels, as beau­ti­ful items are not designed to be durable. Before you know it, you need a new pair.

Last But Not Least

Fash­ion mis­takes find us all. You can’t go through life with­out mak­ing a few lit­tle errors, and it should­n’t get you down. Yeah, it’s frus­trat­ing, slight­ly embar­rass­ing or con­fus­ing, but at the end of the day, there is a solu­tion. If you have com­mit­ted, or are still com­mit­ting, any of the errors list­ed above, don’t fret because now you have in your hot lit­tle hands a prac­ti­cal solu­tion to all of these prob­lems. Per­haps the solu­tion is to neu­tral­ize or intensify. Per­haps you need to try before you buy or mix and match until you find the right look. Ulti­mate­ly though, some­times the solu­tion is to phone a friend. Either way, now you are on your way to look­ing great!