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 | Nick Vega is a money reporter at CNBC Make It. You can follow him on Twitter at @atNickVega. | | |
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Spring is here, and with it comes the annual cleaning out of my closet. The return to the office is already underway at CNBC Make It, and I've been on the lookout for new clothes to wear to work. With that in mind, I spoke to Tan France, one of the stars of Netflix's "Queer Eye," about his approach to buying clothes. Although France is known as the most fashion-forward member of the Fab Five, I was surprised to learn the 38-year-old doesn't like to spend a lot of money on his wardrobe. "It's not very often that I splurge on clothes," he says. "It's usually accessories or jewelry, because those will usually hold value." For France, who is currently working with software company Carta to promote its Equity 101 campaign, making an expensive purchase comes down to one question: Is the clothing item trendy, or is it classic? |
"The things for me that are worth splurging on are the things that I would consider classic. Something I could rewear multiple times over the next few years, decade, decades plural," he says. If, on the other hand, an item of clothing is something he thinks may go out of style in the near future, he won't buy it. France says he learned this lesson as a 16-year-old, when he made his "first big purchase": a $1,000 pair of shoes. "I was doing a job that probably paid relatively well for a 16-year-old and I picked a pair of shoes that were trendy," he explains. "I wore them twice and they never saw the light of day again. I gave them away years later." And when France does find an expensive item of clothing that catches his eye, he has a simple equation he uses to decide if it's worth buying: He compares the cost of what he wants to how many cheaper items he could buy with the same amount of money. His thought process goes something like this: "Am I willing to sacrifice these three other pairs of jeans I could buy for this one [nicer pair]? How often will I wear this? Will it outlive the other jeans I could have purchased for the same amount of money?" "If the answer is yes, that's what I will buy," France says. "If the answer is no, I will not get that thing and I will buy the other three things that equate to the same amount of money." I may not be able to pull off the same outfits as France, but I'll be taking his advice to turn myself into a smarter shopper. Here are some other highlights from Make It this week. - Prepare for your return to the office: If you're going back to the office soon, it helps to be prepared. My colleague Morgan Smith spoke to a career coach and an organizational psychologist about the 10 things everybody should do before leaving the home office behind.
- Avoid these tax mistakes: With Tax Day just weeks away, Mike Winters spoke to tax experts to pinpoint six common mistakes that people make that result in their return getting delayed. Among them? Crypto traders failing to answer the virtual currency question accurately.
- Ukrainian food is in hot demand: Veselka, a popular Ukrainian restaurant in New York City, can hardly keep up with demand as tourists and locals alike have flocked to it during the war in Ukraine. Make It's Megan Sauer spoke with the restaurant's 30-year-old manager about keeping up with the customer surge, which has more than doubled since late February.
- Plan your next vacation: Mikaela Cohen profiled the Liberty House, a 162-year-old townhouse in Alexandria, Virginia that was just dubbed the "hottest" vacation rental in the country by online booking service Eviivo.
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