Fashion It Your Style

Fashion Tips from a Top TV Costume Designer

By PGS Media

Whether you’re at work or on the town, you want your clothes to look their best. However, limited time and money can pose challenges to building and maintaining a great wardrobe.

Dan Lawson, costume designer for “The Good Wife” on CBS, offers the following tips to look put-together wherever you go, no matter what your budget is.

• Remember that well-fitted clothes can make or break an outfit. Set aside some money for alterations to get the proper fit and look your best in any particular garment.

• Be willing to invest money in “workhorse pieces,” those items you can wear for a long time that will be instrumental to each look. Staples for women include skirts, trousers and a good pair of shoes. For men, a well-fitted suit, a good dress shirt, shoes and a nice bag or briefcase.

“Having a few key staples will give you the foundation for dozens of different outfits, as long as you take good care of these workhorse pieces and keep them in good condition,” says Lawson, whose work in costume design and wardrobe has garnered him Emmy nominations and theater awards.

• Set aside a portion of your wardrobe budget on trendy items that may not last forever, but will make your outfits pop while the items are in style. When mixed and matched with your longer-lasting garments, you can create a new and fresh wardrobe.

• Once you’ve taken the time to pull together all these items and have created a wardrobe that you love and just can’t live without, it’s important to extend the life of these clothes. You can affordably prevent fading, shrinking and stretching with an at-home dry cleaning product.

Lawson uses Dryel on-set to refresh clothing quickly. It’s an at-home kit that comes with special cloths, similar to dryer sheets, with special cleansers infused in them that steam clean your clothes in your dryer. The kit includes a protection bag and a spot cleaning booster spray, and requires only 15 minutes in the dryer or 30 minutes for a deeper clean -- and is a great time- and money-saving alternative to taking clothing to the dry cleaners, costing only 25 cents per item. More wardrobe maintenance tips can be found at www.Dryel.com.

With some smart strategies, you can look chic, sleek and sophisticated every day of the week -- at home or at play -- without spending a fortune.