37: How to Shop Sales, Find Splurge-Worthy Items + Style Confidently

This podcast was transcribed using Descript. Please forgive any typos or errors.

Brittany: Hi friends. Welcome to Life with Loverly I'm your host, Brittany Sjogren. I'm excited to share my heart with you beyond the 15 seconds we get on Instagram, grab an iced coffee and let's do life together. 

Hi friends. Welcome back to today's episode of Life with Loverly. Nichelle's back on the podcast. Why does it feel like it's been a really long time, since we've been in the studio together?

Nichelle: Yeah. You had dad on last week. And then you winged one on your own because I couldn't be a part of that one. And then I was on vacation. 

Brittany: Yes. 

Nichelle: So it has been a minute. 

Brittany: It's crazy. I'm happy to be back. Welcome back to the studio. 

Nichelle: We're talking about something so fun. 

Brittany: We're going to talk all about shopping today. Which I feel like we haven't gotten into the nitty gritty of exactly how I go about shopping. As an influencer, as a blogger, this is my career. I do shopping a little bit different than most do, or somebody who's not in this line of work.

And I think you being behind the scenes now, you're like, wow, there's a lot of, thought that goes into things you didn't even know before you started here. 

Nichelle: Absolutely not. First of all, I didn't even know that I would be part of that. Joining team Loverly Grey I was like, that's Brittany's job. She's going to pick out her clothes and I'm just going to help be the creative part of it. First of all, you do have to do a lot of shopping. 

Brittany: Yes. I would say 90% of what is shared across the Loverly Grey platforms are all things I picked out or wanted or found. But then I also have help with sourcing items. Oh, what if we tried this? Or, hey, did you see this yet? We're all kind of scouring our favorite places. But yeah, there's a lot.

Nichelle: There's a lots of lot that into it. Just from in a week span, because you may share several different brands throughout the week, and you're so particular about not putting out repetitive content, it's really thought through. Okay, how can we use this? You're known for work wear Wednesdays, so we've got to think through work wear outfits one point, or a couple, but then there's all these other things that people want help shopping for. Events, going to the mountains, going to a theme park. There's so many activities that people need help with, so being able to stop and be like, okay, how can we use these brands to be creative and help everybody out there that you can? 

Brittany: Yeah, it's crazy because I've even thought about starting a completely separate account for styled looks as far as when people are like, hey, what would you wear to Disney? Or what should I wear to this bachelorette party in Nashville where we're all in our thirties and moms, we don't know what to dress like. I'm always like, gosh, I could start an entire separate account that just has the type of event and then several outfit ideas. If I could clone myself, then maybe we could do that. 

Nichelle: You'd have to probably have another team. It's so much work guys. I don't think you understand. It's so much work and all of the thought and the effort that gets put into it. I don't know. Just remember that as we go through and we talk through some of the ways that she shops and her thought process and how it may vary from somebody who's just every day, walking into a store, just seeing what they like. It's a cool process.

Brittany: We figured we'd walk you through what it looks like to go shopping with Loverly Grey and some of my thought processes behind why I pick what I pick. 

Nichelle: What would your mom say about little Brittany? How is little Brittany different than adult Brittany when it comes to shopping? 

Brittany: I guess when I used to go shopping with my mom, that was the main person I would always go shopping with because she loved to shop too. It felt like an outlet, like, oh, we're gonna run into TJ MAXX and walk around. It was like therapeutic for her. We would go into these stores, not even with the intention to buy anything, but just to look around. So I got so many ideas from such a young age by just constantly looking at clothing or home decor. As soon as you said that, the first thing I thought about when we used to go shopping together was the sale rack. We didn't even stop to see what was in the front of the store. It was like, you immediately went to the back of the store where the sale rack was, because in my mind, I was like, I can get more things from the sale rack. I could maybe get one thing that was regular priced, or maybe I could get three things from the sale rack and it would be about the same price. Then I would have three items I could style at home with my jeans however I was gonna end up styling it.

But in my mind it was always about, how could I use this as another outfit idea? And so we shopped the sale rack, all the time. It's funny, because I feel like it really wasn't until I got into this job that I started to look more at like the front of stores, because I was also a very smart shopper.

My mom was always good with money. When I was growing up, we were average, you know what I mean? I wasn't getting a lot of clothes all the time. It was mostly if I needed them back to school, shopping or Christmas, maybe stuff like that. And we had a limit, we're gonna spend X amount of money on your back to school. So this is what you have. I would always want to make that money go as far as I could. And like a sale rack or I loved the back to school, tax free weekend at an outlet mall was like my jam.

Nichelle: So fun. 

Brittany: Yeah. I could get behind some outlet shopping, and I would leave with so much stuff because I was just smart about, okay, I'm going to like invest in this thing, but then I'm gonna get like all these other shirts that I can wear with that one thing.

So sale shopping was a huge thing. I even remember. This is kind of crazy. I look back at this and I'm just like, my parents knew what they were doing, but at the time I was like, why are they doing this? I turned 14. I had this dry erase board in my bedroom, and I started a countdown from the time I turned 14 for a year until I could get my learner's license and I had this countdown and I was like going to get my learner's license.

As soon as I got my learner's license, I was so excited to drive, with my parents in the car, obviously. I was learning how to drive. That felt like this independent step. Once I could drive by myself, I was going to be able to go shopping by myself.

Nichelle: Oh yeah. 

Brittany: I wanted to get a job because I babysat from an early age and was making money, so I had some money to spend on my own. I had an allowance or my mom would buy me the things I need. I had friends who would get stuff anytime they wanted, and the price didn't matter. But for me it was like, you don't need that. Or if you really want it, then you can babysit extra hours.

Nichelle: Right.

Brittany: Do extra things around the house or whatever.

Nichelle: The things that we didn't know that we'd appreciate now. 

Brittany: Exactly. When I turned 16, I was like, okay, for sure, I'm getting a red Xterra Nissan. Xterra was the car of my dreams. 

Nichelle: It was the car for many years, for a lot of people. 

Brittany: It was so funny wanted that car so bad, and I was for sure that my dad was going to come down. I just remember looking out the driveway, and I was like, he's going to drive down any moment. It's on my birthday, he's driving down and it's going to be in my new Xterra. I didn't get a new Xterra. In fact, I didn't get a new car. I got his car, and he got a new car for obvious reasons. I was so bummed. And so I was like, well then what are they going to give me for my birthday? I remember they gave me $1,600 and they said they broke it down to be $400 was just something I could use if I wanted to put that in savings. The year of 16, you have 12 months in it, so I got a hundred dollars each month that I had to use instead of my mom being like, oh, I'm randomly going to buy you this top. That's where I started to use the money from. So it was a way that they were starting to teach me to budget. It didn't really go over that well the first time we went into Target. I was like, okay, here's the stuff I want at Target today that I "needed". And my mom was like, well, you have money. Like we opened you a bank account. You've just got all this birthday money and you're supposed to save it out. This would apply to you shopping and buying out of that money.

And I was like, no, like that is my money. My mom really had to be hard. And so then quickly, I was like, okay, well, I want to get a job. So I got a job at Schlotzsky's when I turned 16. I rocked the drive through. That was my jam. Also I lived in a college town and these hot college guys would go through the drive through and I would always be like, this is the best job.

Nichelle: I got this guys.

Brittany: I'm just watching all these cute guys drive by getting their sandwiches. Anyways, so then I worked there for a few months and then I went to Kinnucan's, which was an outdoor store that had clothing and camping gear, but also cute clothes. It was such an interesting vibe in there.

They had everything. I worked there for probably three years after that. I just knew like I wanted to make money so that I could buy whatever it was. But I had these values for my mom being like, everything's going to go on sale, you know, wait until it goes on sale, be a smart shopper.

And she had instilled all of this in me from growing up, so then when I started to, get my own money and had to figure out how I was going to spend it. I kind of kept that mentality of wanting more options for myself. But I was also really good about cleaning out my closet.

 We had this store here called Plato's Closet. And I sold clothes to them, and then I would rebuy designer jeans there and wear them. I was figuring out ways to get investment pieces without spending a ton of money. Still making fashionable statement outfits, but still being very affordable, which I feel like really still plays true to what I do today.

Nichelle: Oh yeah. 

Brittany: I mean, aside from a few designer bags, everything is

Nichelle: But those are your investment pieces. Those mean something to you. You've hung onto those. They go with almost anything. 

Brittany: Yeah. If I'm going to splurge on something or save up for something, it's a designer bag.

Nichelle: So what I'm hearing you say is mom and dad really are the driving force to you doing what you're doing today. 

Brittany: Pretty much

Nichelle: Because you walked into work at Insight Global sharing all of these deals and these awesome finds that you found that led you into being a blogger. 

Brittany: Exactly. I remember going into Loft with my mom, which if you've been following Loverly Grey from the beginning, you know Loft was one of the first brands that I was going hard on the paint with. I would say I was one of the first influencers who started sharing Loft and then a lot of people started sharing Loft afterwards. 

Nichelle: Right. 

Brittany: That's the point of influencers and how it's changed over the past few years, but they bring back up stores that maybe you kind of forgot about. The amount of messages that I've received over the years that are like, gosh, I forgot about Loft until I saw you do this try on and loved the pieces, and now I'm shopping at Loft all the time.

My mom was a teacher and Loft did this teacher discount. If you shopped on the first Tuesday of the month, you got an extra 15% off, whatever the teacher discount was and it applied above the sales so discounts on discounts on discounts is what my mom is hearing.

Nichelle: Yes. 

Brittany: I remember going in there with her to the one that we have in Athens, which is still here. Going in there with her, when I was in high school and she would be getting some new things to wear to work. And I would be looking through the sale rack being like, what of this could I make work for a high schooler. Because some of it was a lot more business or professional, but they had a few pieces that could swing a little ways. If you knew me in high school, I was okay with stepping outside of the box as far as my outfits went or trying new things. I'll never forget walking into Loft with her, she was getting some of her tops, and I saw this denim pair of jeans that had suspenders with it and it was wide leg, dark jeans, high rise and it had this suspender. It wasn't overalls, but you wore a really pretty blouse underneath it. But I had a DECA competition. So I was in DECA, which is a marketing club in high school.

Nichelle: Same . Wow. This just says so much about us. 

Brittany: We had a competition in Atlanta and I was like, I'm gonna wear these pants. 

Nichelle: I love that so much. 

Brittany: I got this really cool blouse that had a statement neck, like a big tie at the neck that was tucked into the pants, and then the suspenders were on the outside. By this point I'd already had my short haircut. I've been rocking short hair since high school. This was a whole vibe. I remember being like, this is me. I have arrived. It was, so vivid in my memory. 

Another time in high school, I will never forget the amount of stares I got wearing what I wore at a school one day. But I wanted to wear these denim shorts that I had that were mid thigh, it wasn't long to your knee, but it wasn't booty shorts. It was in the middle. They had this really cool cuff. They were just a great pair of denim shorts. And I wore this I think it was a yellow button down, I had it tucked in, had a belt on and I had the sleeves rolled and I asked one of my good guy friends if I could borrow his tie that he wore. And I literally wore a tie with this outfit and had a big bag and heels. I had heels on in high school. 

Nichelle: Was this around when Avril Lavigne came out? 

Brittany: I don't know, maybe.

Nichelle: I feel like that was kind of a vibe at that time. 

Brittany: But was I was making it dressy. 

Nichelle: I love that.

Brittany: Like not punky. I still had on probably nude heels, because, did I ever own black shoes? Probably not. I remember walking down the hall with such confidence. And I literally did not care. If somebody was like, what is that girl wearing? I mean, I could not have been more proud when he handed me that tie when I walked in the door that day. I put this tie on all throughout the day, and then at the end, I was like, thanks for the tie, handed it and walked to my car.

Nichelle: That's so funny. That's something that is so important. The confidence part. 

Brittany: Yes 

Nichelle: I think that we're going to get into that a little bit, but confidence plays such a huge part of it.

I went to a very small high school and it's so funny. I laugh about the whole DECA thing. because our DECA class was like all of, I don't know, eight people. It was very small. I went to Express to get my outfit for the DECA conference that we had.

Brittany: Loft versus Express . 

Nichelle: That was awesome. How many years ahead? Five. It was just a little different. So confidence comes into play because I didn't even think about it my senior year, any of my high school, honestly, I was just like, I'm going to wear what's comfortable. I'm going to wear what, what feels good, what I enjoy purchasing, because I was the same way I went out and got a job.

I think I was 14 when I got my first job and then had a full time job in the summer when I could because I wanted to buy clothes. That was the goal. It was the car, but it was really because I wanted clothes. I never thought once about worrying about what I was wearing. I just was like, I'm gonna rock this. I love this. And I got best dressed, which I laughed at my senior year. I was like, wait, what me? Who me? 

Brittany: I remember when you told me that in the interview and we were like, tell us something about you, and you said, oh, I was best dressed in high school. And I was like, what are the chances I'm interviewing somebody who got best dressed in high school.

Nichelle: It was funny, but it really does come down to what you're wearing, what you're purchasing. You purchase and wear with confidence. And you are gonna rock it. 

Brittany: Exactly. And I feel like that's the one thing over the years, I've gotten messages from people and they'll send me a picture and they're in an outfit that I've suggested. And maybe it's a little, we're mixing patterns or they've clearly stepped out of their comfort zone, but you can just see this smile on their face and the message being like, I got so many compliments wearing this and I would've never picked it, but I saw you wearing it.

Absolutely love reading that type of thing, or just knowing that people are trusting what I'm saying to give an outfit, a try, and then they feel so good about themselves in it. I think that is so fun. 

Nichelle: You can tell when you feel good, in what you're wearing. That was one of the things that I know that you and I talk about this a lot, people will reach out and they're like, well, can you show this on a different body type? Because I don't know if it'd work on my body type or I don't know if it'd work on my size or, you know, does it come in the size to, how does this look on different people? There's so many questions around I'm not sure that would look good on me. And this is why we bring up confidence. Go for it. Try it. You don't know until you try. I think right before we started recording, I got really passionate about this and it's only because I followed Brittany before I worked here. It took me a second and I was like, that's really cute. I'm gonna go try it on.

And there may be some things that didn't work, but there were a lot more that did and I wouldn't have known if I didn't go try. 

Brittany: Right. I think that was one thing, even when you started that, you said there have been so many things that I've tried, thinking maybe it wouldn't work, but then I tried it, and I was surprised that it did work. I remember thinking, I am so glad that you tried it, and didn't let your mind be like, that's not going to work on me. If your overall vibe is the negative side of things. Then that's what you're gonna think anyway. But if you can just open up your mind a little bit and try to be like, this could work on me, what do I have to lose? Especially if it's like an item I'm sharing, that's a Target or Old Navy and you happen to be going by one. Pop in and try it on first, and I mean, nowadays, so many places do free shipping, free returns. So even if it didn't work, you could always send it back or return it. But I think one reason I also try to give such specific details around the sizing and the fit, why I share what size I'm wearing in reference so people can know for themselves what size they would wear based off of what I'm wearing is so that you don't have to return it. Because if I say, Hey, I sized up on this, and, here's what it looks like. Here's the flow of it. I would suggest the same. And then you do that and it works, you don't have to return it. But to me, I'm doing all this stuff to like help my shopper or help my person who is following me and wants to make the purchase. I wanna make it as crisp and clear and clean and easy for you to do that as possible. I've learned over the years how that is going to work. And it's why we do the shopping and do certain things the way that we do. 

Nichelle: The more you try and the more you branch out, you're going to start learning what style, silhouettes fit you best. So maybe they don't all work, but out of that, you find several styles and fits that work best on your body type. We're all shaped different. That is the way that it is. We are meant to be different. So the thing is, if you don't try, you will never figure that out.

The other great thing that you do is you shop at a lot of brands that have great size range. There may be some boutiques that are more limited, but you also have such a good variety of your Targets, Walmart's, Old Navys, Loft. They have so many sizes to choose from. Just go for it. Try it. 

Brittany: It's very interesting. Another thing I feel like I don't really do a ton of, is reading reviews before I purchase items. I've never been a review reader mostly because I've been shopping for so long and I just find joy and passion that I'm the one that's going to be giving my followers the reviews. I want to go into it with a clear mind. I hardly ever read reviews on certain things, especially clothing . I want to give it a try for myself, so then I can pass the message along or if it's something I want to share. Maybe if I don't like it, I usually tend to just not share what I don't like as much. I think there's a few reasons into that. But one is because I don't want to speak negatively to an item. 

Nichelle: You want to be able to stand behind it if you're going to share it. 

Brittany: There are definitely times where I've shared something, I've been like, love this. I feel like this is going to be great, and then I wash it a few times and I'll come back and be like, Hey, this actually hasn't held up as great as I thought. Just a heads up if you haven't purchased it yet. Just know you're probably going to want to hand wash it. I try to speak to those type of things later.

Nichelle: With reviews, you have to remember it's just like customer service lines. It's so much easier for somebody who is in a negative head space or who is upset about something, they're the people who eight times out of 10 are probably going to be the ones that are putting reviews on there. It did not work out for them, but what you're not seeing is the other 80% of people who it did work for, because it's so much easier to complain about something than it is to speak highly about something. So that's the other thing with reviews. 

Brittany: Yeah. That's why I just want to try this for myself, and make my own judgment. Then I'm sharing it with a group of people who I would say a majority of them have been here for a while. They trust my style, my options have worked for them in the, so that's who I'm going to give the review to. This whole thing that I'm doing is optional for people to consume. If you don't like it at some point, you don't have to buy it. There's never a force like you are here, you must buy this now. You get to decide what you consume, what you purchase and not everything is going to work for every single person every time. So I think that's the other thing, as you're watching influencers, consume what you feel like is best for you buy what you feel like is best for you. You don't have to have every single thing, just because it's been talked about on the internet a bunch.

Nichelle: Yeah. Do you prefer to shop online or go in store still? 

Brittany: I love an in-store experience. Especially before COVID I was always an in-store person because I just liked the experience of touching the clothes. I think because I enjoy shopping so much and that's always been a part of me is going into a store. I think I have been able to be really good at my job because I can touch and see and feel and know the flow and be able to give you guys that information a lot sooner than when I order stuff online. I don't know what it's gonna be like until I get it in. And then sometimes I get stuff in and I'm like, oh, Ew, I wouldn't have bought this if I would've known this was the material, or. I didn't notice it didn't have a lining. It looked like it did on the website or whatever. So I feel like I still love the store experience. I just visualize styling things if I can see like, oh, here's a top like, oh, okay here's some pants. Let me see, I have something like this at home. Okay, perfect. I know I'm going to be able to make this outfit out of it. But maybe I wouldn't have been able to easily visualize that on the computer. 

Nichelle: I know. That's kind of why I asked you that question because I will tell you, you are really good about picking out some great things online that somebody else probably wouldn't pick.

 I'm shook inside at some of the models that are on H& M and the way that they're usually squatting or bent over. They're not necessarily showing the whole outfit very well. And we get packages in from H&M and I'm like, where did you find this? How did you figure out that this was going to be a good one? 

Brittany: I think it's just over years of shopping at some of these brands that I've worn for so long and knowing a lot of the names or they'll put the material in the name of the of the dress. So then if I see that and I know it's been something that's worked for me in the past, I'm like, okay, forget about what it looks like on this model, if I like the print and I know it's one of the names I'll just try it. Some of this stuff I'm like are like, what are they trying to sell here? Or sometimes I'm like, I'm glad that they didn't do a good job merchandising it, because then that gave me the opportunity to sell more.

Nichelle: That's exactly what I'm thinking. I mean, you are finding these gems that I don't think anybody else would think to even try purchasing. Because sometimes, I mean, even online it looks different than it would on a hanger in the store, sorry to blast H&M they were just the first one that I thought of. There's so many brands that do it that way. I mean, Walmart, does it that way. They stand straight up and down. There's no movement to it, but that's one thing that is so cool about, you being able to visualize and you know that product so well. And can introduce it to your followers, if that's something they had not found before. You know what I mean? 

Brittany: It's funny because so many times I wish I had so much more time to share different ways to wear every single outfit that I wear every single piece. Because a lot of times when I'm shopping, I can visualize very quickly, three or four ways to wear something.

But I don't always have all of the pieces or much time to showcase every single one of those. So then I have to pick what is going to get through to the most amount of people, and then hopefully some of my other styles will remind them that that shirt is similar and I could do this with it, but a lot of times wish I had more time to share more ways. When I see something, I can see several ways to wear it, but not everybody can do that. That's why I try to offer three ways to wear this, or a lot of my reels I show repeating outfits or repeating base pieces, like work pants.

You could go back through my work wear reels and see one pair of pants styled 30 different ways from the last year. I mean, that's a month's worth of outfits. I wish there was more time to share some of that stuff. because I think that's what people like, but then also it's really interesting because stuff sells out and I have no control over that and if I put so much effort into showing a bunch of ways and then within the 24 hours it's gone. It's so hard to then use it to recreate items. 

Nichelle: Yes. You do a really good job. I'm excited to see next week Nordstrom sale. Whenever you start pulling the items that you're interested in. A lot of them are in the same family that you tend to purchase year after year, but seeing you recreate outfits and then turning around and with what you have based on what's sold through still being able to share those pieces, but mixed it up for those who maybe have maybe missed it and they haven't had a chance to shop yet. It's really fun to watch. 

Brittany: Yeah. So much goes in behind the scenes. I feel like I'm constantly shopping. Like two weeks ago we looked around and we were like, none of the items we have right now are in stock. That's also hard because while I want to continue creating some of these outfits, it's really frustrating for people when I share something and they can't buy it. That was something I learned early on. If I'm going to be on stories, like talking, nine times out of 10, somebody's going to be like, where's your top from? What's that dress? I try to really wear stuff that is I'm like actually wearing and showcasing and going to post about on Instagram or that is available for somebody to go and purchase. Because at the end of the day, this is a sales business. I'm in the business of making money here, and I want to be able to share items that people can then see how I'm wearing it and be inspired and go purchase it and do the same thing. 

Nichelle: It's like running a store for you, but in your own box in Instagram. You want to have things available for people to purchase. So literally she takes time out of every morning and she will look in her closet and she will make sure it's available before she puts it on her body. She loves you guys. 

Brittany: Sometimes, I'm lazy. And I'm like this isn't in stock, but I really wanted to wear it today. I'll change before I get on stories. They know, people will start asking where is everything from? I also feel like I save the pieces that I really love. And those are things I wear on the weekends or times when I'm going out with friends and it's not necessarily I'm publishing like, oh, look where we are. Or it's more personal time. And that's where I wear a lot of the pieces that I've maybe had for years.

And sometimes I show it and say, this is old and other times you know, I change if I want to talk about something on stories.

Nichelle: That's the hard part about your job is that you can't get too attached sometimes. It's almost sad. It makes me sad.

Brittany: I definitely have pieces that I'm like, I don't care. Or even when I'm shopping, I will purposely buy things that I'm like, I know this isn't going to be available, but I love it so much, and it's going to be something that's great for me. Things I use for inspiration for my own self or some of these pieces that aren't available for everybody to shop, inspire me to look for different things that I can find that people can shop later. A few years from now, hopefully there will be a Loverly Grey clothing line. And some of my favorite pieces over the years are pieces that have given me inspiration. If you go in my closet and you see the section that is, what I've kept for years, it's kind of the same style. To me, I'm like, here are silhouettes I'm going to go back to when I create a dress line. Here's what I'm gonna go back to, because this is what I love so much that even if it's out of stock, I still want it to be part of my closet. 

Nichelle: Yeah. How do you find your style every year? Do you kind of wait for what's coming out after things have been designed? Let's say Nordstrom sale, for example, that's kind of like a snapshot into fall, right? Do you wait for things to come out and say, okay, this is the vibe this season, or do you go wherever your heart takes you? Like, this is my jam right here. I'm feeling this right.

Brittany: I feel like I have a little bit more of a classic style so I'm always going to go for the more classic options over the super trendy styles, I'm just like, that's just not me. Or maybe from a different era that I'm just like, I don't really want to go back to like the early 2000's. I feel like there's three zones in the fashion industry. One is like super trendy. What's coming. Maybe it's recycled fashion. And then there's like super classic that is more just your safe pieces ,like your classic button downs, slacks, things that are just going to be your staples. I feel like there's more trends, but still safe, but maybe a few pattern pieces to add to your classics kind of thing. So I feel like I fall on those two sides of things where it's like, there's trendy pieces that go well with classics. And then there's also the staples. That's kind of where I tend to stay, and sometimes I'll try something new, but I don't know, I'm not as much of a wait and see what it's gonna be. Sometimes I switch it up, but I think my pattern play and trying different patterns together is where I kind of switch things up a little bit and test the waters. Especially when I was going to work all the time and wearing different outfits. I was always mixing florals and stripes, or leopard print with a bright color. I mean, I was in sales at the time too and so I like wanted to be memorable to some of my clients who were meeting several of me for different companies. So, not only did I want to be professional, I wanted to be memorable, you know?

Then I had worked for this great company that backed up our actual services. It's me selling myself. That was just another way I feel like I did that. To this day, I feel like that's where I can kind of teeter the line of what's trendy and what's not.

It's funny because I feel like I wear a lot more cropped stuff now with a classic jean and then a cropped, maybe shirt or t-shirt now, and I think maybe two or three years ago I probably wouldn't have done that. I would've been like, I'm not wearing a crop shirt, but then now I feel like I wear crop tee a lot, just very tasteful.

Nichelle: It's that edge of like, okay, it's a classic top it's not anything crazy, but it has a little bit of that trend to it. Just a little hair. 

Brittany: Exactly. So that's kind of where I like to dabble, but I also think my audience is very wide. Young twenties. Like fresh out of college working like new working to like thirties, like mom.

And then I would say like 40, 50, even 60 is a big range of people. We get messaged all the time that are like, I'm more your mom's age, but I love your style. I feel like some of the things I can wear too, because of the classic pieces. 

Exactly. It's funny because a lot of times, if I go through and do a closet clean out, I always have my mom come over and look. . And this is where she gets a lot of her clothes is from my closet, but then she does her own thing too.

Oh yeah. Because girl likes to shop.

Yeah. I mean, TJ MAXX is her jam and she also like loves a good boutique. She is like the first to be like, have you been to this new boutique? I was getting a coffee the other day. And I stopped in this boutique. And I was like, I've never even heard of that boutique.

She's always the one that keeps me up to date on the new boutiques around town and what they have. This is where I get it from. We love to shop and I've just made it a career. It's funny because my dad, on the podcast, he referred to me as the internet athlete of the family.

Nichelle: I died. 

and it's, it's literally the truth. Yeah. The rest of my family is real athletes, like hold gold medals and records and things like that. Right. Just on the internet. I mean, it's a sport . Yes. All right. You just mentioned cleaning out your closet. in a simple way. cause it can be a little complicated sometimes, but in a simple way, how do you go through and sort through maybe things that are, you know, maybe out of season, how do you go through your closet and purge?

So I will say before I was in this. Before, this was my career. I cleaned out my closet a lot because I was constantly like shopping the so racks. I was bringing new stuff in and I kind of came up with a rule that if I was gonna bring something in, I needed to take something out. So I wasn't just like so much overflow because you can definitely like hold things and it be like too much.

Like you don't, you don't need everything. And so I, um, I would go through stuff and look at it and be like, when's the last time I wore this. And if it was longer than six months ago, and it was like, not in season, I would be like, do I really need this? Am I really gonna wear this in the next like, and I would think about like what I had coming up, going on.

Other pieces I had recently gotten. And there were just some times that like, clothes, I was like, okay, no, right. Occasionally there would be things that like, maybe I bought on a trip and it had like a special memory tied to it that I would keep. , but for the most part, I had like a six month rule. Like if I hadn't worn it in six months, then we need to donate or, you know, Move to a different pile.

And now I feel like I'm getting, I get, I have so much more clothes than like what any normal person should ever have. So hear me when I say like, the amount of clothes I have is not normal. Nobody should have this amount of clothes, but it's just part of my job with brands that I'm working with. Like some brands just gift me.

Mm-hmm things, or they say are like, Hey, we're dropping a new collection. We'd love to send you some pieces. And so. We're constantly receiving items, which is amazing. And I'm super thankful for cuz a lot of times I use what some of these are as like pieces to like add into a real I styling or it gives me inspiration to be like, huh, I don't love the colors of this.

But like I like the style of this shirt. I'm gonna go search for something similar to this. So I get like inspiration from stuff that comes in. But I feel like if it's a piece that maybe. Completely out of stock, never coming back in stock that gets moved to a different closet. Yep. If it is something that I'm just like, we have something else similar, it could get moved to a different closet.

Or if it's like a seasonal piece that I'm just like, like sometimes if I just don't feel like I'm really gonna wear it a lot, or if I can't style it several different ways to make it like worth it, it gets moved to a different closet, but. That's one reason. I love like selling clothes on posh mark, or we do a closet sale.

And then we donate all of the proceeds from like posh mark earnings, closet, sale earnings to charity. And because I'm really, the only reason I wanna do that is so that somebody can get this item that maybe they didn't have the opportunity to buy, or it sold out before they could buy it. And then they have the chance to buy mine.

And so that's really the only reason I actually. Put my clothes on. These like, or else I would've just donate it to somewhere. Right. But I'm like, I know I have a follower out there who was like, I really wish I would've bought that. And now it sold out, can I buy yours? I mean, I get that request a lot. And so it, and I also just love being able to give back to charity.

So it's not like I'm like selling it and then like re like pocketing the money mm-hmm or using it to like continue to buy clothes. And for the people who do that, there's nothing wrong with that. Like, I'm not dogging anybody who does it that way, but just for us, like, I just, that's what I choose to do.

And so it, it makes me like, feel not as bad for like getting, like going through my closet a little bit more often. and cleaning things out because I know the items are going to a good home of somebody who like really wanted it and just couldn't get their hands on it. Like the closet sale. Like I think after last year's seeing the turnout and people showing up for the cause that it was for cuz it was for St.

Jude and seeing the outcome. It makes us more excited. We. Are you sure you need that? Let's just go put it in the closet sale pile. yeah, let's donate it here to go. Yeah. It's so fun. I have loved over the last year, people who came to the closet sale and bought things have like tagged me when they've worn it and been like bought this sale, lovely grace closet sale.

And it'll be like months later. And I just love seeing people in those pieces. So it just makes me genuinely happy to know that something that maybe like, I am not wearing. Somebody else is like, this is like a key piece in their closet and they rotate it in their closet, like monthly or weekly even. And it's something that they really loved.

So I do clean out my closet. I do feel like if you wanted to clean out your closet, the six month rule is a great rule. The like if you're bringing something new in, you need to donate something is a great rule. If. If you're kind of getting to a point where you're like, I have too many clothes, right.

That's something that you can easily implement and rotate clothes out. And it's a great way to shop too. Love that. I know I do the 12 month rule. Yeah. So I'm like, if we get back to that same season and I'm like not touching it, like, what I'm seeing right now is summer stuff that I haven't touched. I'm like goodbye.

Yeah, goodbye. Yeah. That's a great way to look at it too. When I started the six month rule, we didn't have like a lot of closet space yeah. In our first house. And so I was like, I have no choice, but to start getting rid of stuff, if I like know, I'm probably not gonna wear this again. Right. Anyway. Well, I feel like we covered so many, like.

So much. I think that we could really talk forever. Honestly, we could, there's like even things that I'm like, oh, well we didn't talk about that. Yeah. Well, TBD guys, you know, we got some bonus episodes to record, so maybe we'll throw in a few random shopping tips right in the future. Well, thank you so much for joining us on today's episode of life with loverly.

Please share this episode with somebody you think will enjoy hearing about shopping. See you next week. Thanks for listening to today's episode. I can't wait to continue these conversations with you over on Instagram. Make sure to follow along at life with loverly until next time.