by Christine Morris

Created on: December 27, 2006   Last Updated: June 29, 2009

Choosing clothes that you will be able to wear for years to come is fairly simple if you learn to look in the right places and for the right things. Once you have learned the marketing tricks of clothing merchandising, you'll have no trouble getting the few staple pieces that will allow you to be both trendy and classic at the same time.

Go To the Middle
Clothing stores make most of their money off trendy items. If you buy a classic white blouse for $30 and have it for 5 years before spilling red wine on it, the store has made $30. If you buy a trendy blouse in that season's hot color for $15 every year for 5 years and then have to bury it in your closet because no one would be caught dead in mauve ruffles ever again, the store has made $75. Because they make more money off trendy stuff, they place it at the front of the store where it will catch your eye the moment you walk in the door. Head for the middle of the store where the classic items usually end up. Then if you feel the need for something flashy, try the back where the sale items are. If you're going to be stuck with mauve ruffles you could only wear a few times, you might as well get them half off.

Go Classic
Look for items that have classic lines and very little decoration. Straight leg pants, A-line or straight skirts, blouses with standard collars. Sure the pants with the flared leg are cool, but all too soon wearing them will be like wearing a calendar. The more ruffles, pin-tucks, flairs and doodads there are on the item, the further you should stay from it.

Go Plain, Not Plaid
Every year, someone somewhere throws a dart at a color wheel and deems certain colors to be in that season. To avoid this you'll have to do a little advance planning. You will need to figure out which colors look good on you. The best book I've seen on the subject is Color Me Beautiful which helps you determine what colors always look good on you. Then you have to train yourself to identify the correct colors or find a shopping buddy who can help. If you know that colors with a yellow tone always make you look sickly, then you know to just skip all those colors. Trust me, there will be some seasons when there isn't a thing that will look good. Also, try to stick to solids instead of patterns. Patterns are even worse about going out than colors. Colors usually come back, patterns just die. Remember cabbage roses?

Go To a Professional
Ideally, you hire a personal shopper to go out with you and identify not only classic items, but

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