You’ve heard that suggestion that most people wear 20% of their wardrobe 80% of the time, yeah? Not me! There’s very little in my wardrobe that doesn’t get regular wear.

You might have noticed when I did my recent post on my top ten wardrobe staples that everything was red. Was this a coincidence? Am I obsessed with the colour red? No and no.

It was deliberate; my feeling is that if you’re going to take the time and effort to put together wardrobe staples, you should also take care to make sure that everything works with everything else. There’s no point in having these ten staples in your wardrobe if none of them work together!

If you’re just starting out and don’t have a lot of money, it makes sense to think about what’s already in your wardrobe, and what colours will work with that. If you’ve got a lot of red (like me), obvious choices would be black, white, and navy.

I’m going to go with red again this time (as I think red looks fabulous on everyone and is reasonably versatile and dramatic!).

1. The Netti swing dress from Pinup Girl Clothing. Yep, it’s blue! But it has red highlights, and the nautical theme is a really obvious partner for red. This will work with a red shrug/cardi, red belts, red petticoats and shoes.

2. The Heidi dress, again from Pinup Girl Clothing. You could accessorise this with more red accessories, you could pair it with black, or you could go a little wild (ho ho! Punny!) and pair it with leopard print. Red and leopard print together are amazing.

3. Observe, red and leopard. Not the most affordable choice as these happen to be Christian Louboutin heels, but I wanted to show how the red works beautifully with the leopard print. Leopard print heels are everywhere right now; for something similar and more affordable have a look at Bordello.

4. Red petticoat. It’ll go with your navy Netti and your red Heidi. It’ll also go with your red/white Betty Le Bonbon skirt! This one is from Hell Bunny.

5. Red and white BLBB swing skirt. I’ve paired this with black, but it would just as easily work with blue and white, or more red.

6. Red and white ballet flats. These are just Target shoes, but there’s plenty of similar shoes out there. These would go beautifully with everything pictured for a nice casual day look.

7. White top from Pinup Girl clothing. It’s a simple white top - regardless of your wardrobe colour scheme, you really can’t go wrong with this.

8. Leopard print pencil skirt from Pinup Girl clothing. You could wear this with a red cardigan tucked in (or over the top), with the white top above, or with a simple black top, as pictured. Just like the white top, black is really a wardrobe staple you can’t mess up.

9. A red cardigan or shrug. This one is from Forever 21, but you should be able to find something similar online. Wear it over your dresses or skirts, it’ll match up with your nautical theme, your leopard prints, your red dresses, add it to your monochromes for a pop of colour. Win win!

10. Enough said, really. This is from Pinup Girl clothing, though has possibly sold out? But it’s a red bag, and you can find a red bag pretty much everywhere.

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Just as an added note; you’ll notice a lot of this stuff came from Pinup Girl Clothing. I was watching somewhat incredulously yesterday as some ladies on tumblr were making excuses not to shop with PUG because of postage costs. Ladies. Ladies ladies ladies. Especially those of you like myself, who are not in Australia. Spend $300 and your postage is free. Use the code CCFREEAIR. I drool over PUG clothes, add them to my wishlist, and when I’ve got the money saved up, do a bulk order. I probably place 3-4 orders with PUG per year this way.