Making the most of what you have using Go Chic or Go Home…and a Giveaway!

October 17, 2012

I’ve heard from many of you that you hope to make the most of your closet, and I love that so many of you have already found tons of new outfits from things you have!

I want to introduce you to a tool that I believe is really, really helpful for going further in making the most of what you have, no matter where you’re starting from. You should be no strangers to one of our sponsors Go Chic or Go Home. Many of you are members! But today I want to help you use GCOGH to make the most of your closet.

Cynthia, one of the founders of GCOGH, challenged me to pick out some of those lonely pieces in my closet–the ones that have not made it into an outfit in a while–and see if GCOGH could help me make them fresh again. Honestly, I was skeptical. “I think I’ve gotten decent at remixing,” I thought. “What can GCOGH do for me that I can’t do by staring at my closet?” And, “Is it really going to be worth the trouble of uploading pictures of my clothes?” MAN, was I wrong!

I’ve been stumped with these two tops for a long time:

I’ve worn them plenty before, and for whatever reasons I was just feeling tired of them. In fact, the red top was in my “almost sell/donate” pile–the purgatory of my closet–and after using GCOGH to remix it, I’m totally ragging on myself for almost getting rid of it! I used GCOGH to make four fresh outfits between these two tops! (Shown below.)

Using GCOGH to Remix

1. Upload a few pics of your clothes.
First, I took pics of items from my closet and uploaded them to my GCOGH account. It seemed overwhelming at first, but I just started with like 5-10 of my staples. Then I ended up loving it and have now uploaded over half of my clothes!

What’s also really cool is that YOU can save pics from MY closet (or anyone else’s) and put them in your own virtual closet. In GCOGH, just click the pic and then click the “Add” button. This is great when it’s a similar item that you have but don’t want to upload yourself or if it’s an item you’re thinking of buying and you want to try remixing it with other items in your closet. That’s pretty cool!

You can also get pics from retailers within the GCOGH interface. For example, you can shop at Gap through GCOGH, and if you’re thinking of buying an item, save it to your own board and try to create ensembles with that item to see if it works with your current clothes! Kinda like a test drive to see if it’ll really work in your closet or not.

2. See each of your items laid out.
This is that part that I find really helpful–you get to see your whole closet laid out flat.

For those of you who have told me you’ve wished to see my closet, start using GCOGH and you’ll be able to! You can see my board of clothes, and I can see yours. Super fun. (And that’s how you can use items from my closet in your own ensembles/boards.)

Seeing all of my clothes laid out in the virtual closet gave me a new perspective. In my real closet, things get lost, stuck between other clothes, or forgotten in a drawer. Since GCOGH’s virtual closet lays everything out, I could clearly see all of the pieces I have.

3. Use the “Create” function to put together ensembles.
Just drag and drop items from the board into the bottom section to create an ensemble. It’s sooo easy.

Here the outfits I created with my lonely pieces:

Outfit #1 – I was delighted by how the white jeans freshened up this top for me. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of that before seeing it in my virtual closet. I wore this last week and will do a full post on it soon. 🙂

Outfit #2 – I would never have thought to put a red top with a red blazer for fear of being too matchy-matchy. But when I saw it in the virtual closet I was like, “OOOH, I think that could work!” SO CUTE. I have not worn this yet, but I’m dang excited to.

Outfit #3 – I don’t have much of an explanation for this other than just seeing it all come together in my virtual closet. Voila! I love it!

Outfit #4 – I once tried to recreate this pin from the lovely Linda with a navy a-line skirt and a darker polka dot top, but it didn’t work out because the proportions were off with my a-line skirt. I gave up on it. But when I looked in my virtual closet trying to make an outfit with this polka dot top, I saw my denim pencil skirt next and realized I could still recreate a similar outfit to Linda’s, just with totally different pieces than I had originally planned. Whoop whoop!

Larger sized pictures of some of these outfits will either be posted in the future here or can be found on my Go Chic or Go Home boards.

Other Tools

Explore Feature

You can use GCOGH’s “Explore” feature to display an infinite number of outfits from other GCOGH members. So.much.inspiration. You can also filter the options by things like colors, themes, or occasions. Wanna see outfits that only utilize red? You’ve got it. Want to get ideas for how to wear animal print? Easy. Wanna find “casual” looks or “business” looks or “fall” looks? No problem. There’s too many examples of all the possible ways to filter outfits, so just go to the “Explore” tab, click “All Outfits,” and filter away!

Create Ensembles to Wear for Later

The main thing I love about GCOGH is that I can create ensembles with my own clothes and store them away as a running list of outfits I can wear. I pin a lot on Pinterest for inspiration, and then I go to GCOGH to recreate the outfits with my own clothes and save them for later. When I plan outfits for the week I just go through my GCOGH Ensembles list and choose from a list of outfits I’ve created that are waiting to be worn. Makes life SO EASY.

You can also use the GCOGH boards to save inspiration photos instead of using Pinterest. It’s all incorporated there for you! You can include an inspiration photo from your GCOGH board to your ensemble to remember what you were going for, like the first ensemble in the pic below.

Lastly, when you click on an individual item, like my red shirt, you get to see all the ensembles you’ve created with that item. In the pic above, you see the two outfits I’ve created so far with the red shirt. So if I want to wear my red shirt, instead of sifting through ALL of my ensembles, I can just click on the item’s picture and a list of all the ensembles I’ve created with it will be right there! You can also see ensembles other members created with your piece, if they pulled from your closet. More ideas from other people with your own clothes! Suuuuuch a cool and helpful feature for easy dressing.

I Challenge You – Win $50!

I’m challenging you to use GCOGH to find some friends for your lonely pieces! To sweeten the deal, Go Chic or Go Home is offering a prize to one lucky participant–Win $50 to any GCOGH retailer! (Madewell, Gap, Banana Republic, and more!)

Here’s the challenge:

Choose 1 lonely item in your closet
Upload 5-10 pics of items from your closet to your GCOGH “My Clothes” board. Or, pull from my GCOGH closet, someone else’s closet, or the Shops in GCOGH.
Use the ensemble creator under “Create” to start mixing and matching! Create an ensemble with that lonely item.
Comment here with a link(s) to the ensemble and tell me how GCOGH helped you make it. You’ll be entered into a raffle to win $50 and I’ll check out your ensembles, and you can check out other people’s!

Two winners will be chosen at random from the participants. Challenge will end October 31st. That’s two weeks to upload pics and get a mixin’ and a matchin’.

I’m soooo excited to see your ensembles. I’ve become slightly addicted to creating ensembles on GCOGH, and my (not so secret) hope is that you do too. Muahaha.

P.S. You can also leave normal comments here without participating in the challenge. 🙂