These 3 Affordable Brands Are Making Our Absolute Favorite Wardrobe Staples
Our closet just dramatically improved.
by The Candidly Team
We’ve been on a decades-long quest to stop hating all our clothes. We don’t even know how it happens. We’re the ones who bought all this crap after all. We can barely contain it, and yet, we’re not excited to wear 87% of it.
Well recently, we think we’ve cracked the code. In order to love our clothes and enjoy getting dressed every single day we need to have a closet full of staples that we know look very, very good on us. Rocket science, right?
But excellent staples are underrated. They’re the classic pieces that fit extremely well, flatter our shape, and look chic no matter what. And we’ll just go ahead and say it. It helps if they look not cheap. You know what we mean. Plasticky. Poorly cut. Falling apart after 3 wears.
The trouble is we don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend on each of these items of clothing. So we’re also on a quest to find brands that don’t shred our bank accounts but that look, fit, and feel just as good as brands that do.
Bottom line: we found 3.
The weird part is each of these brands was right under our noses. You already know all 3 of them. But what you might not know is that the stuff they’re making right at this moment is as good as it is. We didn’t!
And so today, we share our discovery/ rediscovery of the brands that are giving us our favorite basics.
Off we go:
1. J.CREW FACTORY
Only recently did we start to peek our heads inside J.Crew Factory. At first, we were blown away by the inventory online. So many styles were showing up that we’d been looking for all over the internet. Mostly in places where the prices depress us and we pretty much have to wait for an annual sale to shop.
The photos on the J.Crew Factory site enticed us. The size range was incredible. The prices were obviously a dream. But we were completely in the dark about what to expect in terms of quality and fit. When our order arrived, all we can say is we were wildly surprised. Pretty much every single piece we tried on left us with the same thought, “why would we spend 2-3x as much on this same thing anywhere else?” We felt good in everything we put on our bodies. We even created our entire French lady wardrobe out of their styles.
Here are some highlights that will do nothing short of make your life easier … and chicer. Possibly daily.
2. GAP
Zac Posen just took over as Creative Director at Gap. And immediately he started creating things like this, which of course sold out in like 16 seconds but still made us weak. He also partnered the brand with DÔEN to create a romantic collection we couldn’t stop shopping from. The point is exciting things are happening at the Gap. And so many of their styles are making us remember why they were the classic, casual, go-to brand of the best mall years of all time. Here’s what’s exciting us right now.
3. QUINCE
Quince is a brand making real clothes out of real cashmere and real leather and real silk, and somehow it’s all actually affordable. So often when we can’t buy the “real thing” because of cost, we wind up turning to flimsy, cheap, sad versions of things that don’t look luxe and that we end up having to replace so many times we might as well have bought the expensive thing we actually wanted in the first place.
The point is, Quince has some incredible pieces, especially in their cashmere line, which we personally live in all fall-winter. But there’s also washable silks and lusty leather bags and even just organic tees that cost $15 instead of $50. It’s all a bit of a fantasy.
And here are the things we think you should make a reality, because they are game-changing when it comes to getting dressed.
At The Candidly, we try a lot of stuff so you don’t have to. We only recommend things we truly love, and that we think you’ll love, too. All products are chosen independently by our creative team, and all details reflect the price and availability of products at the time of publication. If you buy something we link to, The Candidly may earn a commission.
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