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Simplify Your Child's School Wardrobe

When buying your children's school wardrobe, it is always handy to have a plan before hitting the stores. Choosing basic colors, styles, and essential wardrobe items and amounts should be your starting point.

Basic colors

Save Money Buying Children's Clothing suggests using a neutral or two for most of their wardrobe essentials such as pants, jackets, and coats. These neutrals will need to blend. Neutral colors are denim, white, ivory, beige, brown, gray, and black. To brighten up the wardrobe, pick two accent colors that blend with each other and the neutrals. Some common examples would be yellow and green, red and blue, pink and lilac, etc. Yes, you will have some tops that don't fit into the wardrobe plan, such as school colors t-shirts. Sticking with a narrow color choice will give you a more extensive variety of combinations rather than having a collection of outfits that only match with each other.

Styles

Stick with styles that are simple with a minimum of design details. Examples would be polo shirts, crew neck t-shirts and sweaters, A-line, and natural waist dresses. If you have several children, these clothes will always be in style and make great hand-me-downs. The simple lines also make the clothes less bulky so you can layer them. Your kids will probably want some "in" styles which is understandable, limit how many are purchased, so the whole wardrobe isn't out of fashion by next spring.

Always make layering a priority. Layering is wearing more than one article of clothing at a time. For example, a girl's simple sundress can be extended into fall by putting a t-shirt/sweater under it or a sweater over the top.  For clothing to be useful for layering, it can't be bulky or have bulky details. The advantage of layering is it makes clothing less seasonal as they can be worn year round. Transitioning from Summer to Fall has some tips using layering. Layering also adds to the warmth of the clothing. Jackets, if not bulky, can be used as layers under winter coats. Make sure that the winter coat is big enough to handle the layers.

Some layering ideas:

T-shirt

Summer: t-shirt and pants. Fall: t-shirt, flannel shirt, and pants. Cooler fall: t-shirt with a sweatshirt over or a jacket. Winter: t-shirt, sweatshirt, jacket and winter coat.

Start with a basic dress that is sleeveless with a natural waist

Summer: wear as is. Fall: wear with a t-shirt under. Cooler: wear with a sweater or jacket over. Winter: wear with long sleeve t-shirt or sweater under or over, a jacket, tights, boots and a winter coat.

Wardrobe plan

How much you need if each clothing item depends on how frequently you wash clothing. You can get away with fewer clothes if you wash daily as compared to weekly. It also depends on your weather what items you need more lightweight or heavier layers. This wardrobe plan assumes the child does not wear school uniforms.

Pants- 2 pairs if wash every day. Eight pairs if you wash weekly. Pants include khakis, jeans, and skirts. What you choose will depend on your weather. You may need to add in a couple of pairs of shorts also (making ten bottoms) to the regular pants for fall and spring transition.

Tops-10 to 12 tops. No matter how frequently you wash, you will need a variety of tops. Tops can be t-shirts, sweaters, sweatshirts, shirts, and blouses. Don't forget to include some short sleeves for transitional months. Remember some of the tops will probably include school colors or be required by the band or another group. You may want to add a dressy top to the list.

Dresses 2 or 3 may be substituted in place of tops and bottoms.

Jackets 1 to 3 jackets. Make these basic styles such as jean jackets, simple bomber or motor jackets, blazers, zip-up hoodies, military styled, sweater cardigans, etc. These should be sturdy as they are worn frequently and need to be a color that matches with all the tops. The more jackets you have, the fewer tops you will need.

Coats-where you live will decide what coats you need-winter or raincoats. Or maybe both.

Shoes-two pair of sneakers would be nice if you can afford them. Snow boots and rain boots if your local weather requires them. A pair of short boots is always a welcome addition to most kids wardrobes.

Umbrellas, rain caps, snow caps, scarfs, and mittens and gloves all depending on your local weather conditions.

Don't forget underwear.

I hope this helps you in planning your child's school wardrobe. Please share comments below.