Transform your wardrobe: winter to summer

When it comes to wardrobe updates, I'm yet to meet a person who doesn't know how to winterise their summer clothes (it mostly involves adding black tights and a coat). But when it comes to making the most of your winter clothes, suddenly it's not as simple (I can't say summerise because that is an actual word and means something different). Obviously the second the sun comes out, you want to ditch the jumpers and put the coats in storage for another year but there are certain winter staples that you can wear through summer and make the most of them. I've done 3 winter staple pieces and taken them from winter outfits to summer outfits; obviously the winter outfits should all have coats with them but it was so hot and sunny today that I would've melted if I'd have added them; it was hot enough and weird enough to even be wearing the winter outfits in the first place! Featuring winter outfits does give me a chance to feature some unseen clothes though, as my blog so far has been all about SS14.

Shirts are the one borrowed-from-the-men piece that will never get old. They look really sophisticated and the high collar looks great with statement jewellery. The collars also look good when worn under jumpers. This one was from new look for around £15 and I love the white and blue china print so much. Through winter, I wore it with black tights (of course) and black boots (new look), and tucked it into this black PVC skirt, which was around £45 from Topshop. I love leather-look and PVC because they keep their shape nicely and always seem to be the right length. Not to mention they don't seem to get dirty.

Because it's quite a thin fabric, this shirt is perfect to carry you through to summer. The china print is similar to a floral and the white base colour means it works perfectly with pastels. To make it a bit more summery, I rolled the sleeves up and wore it tucked into this pink miss selfridge skater skirt (petite range £29), with my white La Moda sandals (£24) and rose gold watch. Skater skirts are also great for summer because not only do they not make you overheat but they're really cute and girly. Sorry about the pose again, I don't know what it is about that skirt but I can't wear it without doing that pose.

Over-the-knee boots were huge this winter and so of course I invested in a pair, but only actually got round to wearing them a handful of times. They weren't massively expensive; I got this suede-effect pair from new look for around £30 but I still love them so it would be a shame not to wear them. In winter, I went with a monochrome look. I love this river island piece because it works as a dress or top; I went with it as a dress in this outfit as I added black tights and a black coat (new look £49.99). Monochrome was literally my best friend in winter and made shopping very easy because it involved avoiding colour.

In summer though, monochrome can end up looking a bit drab unless it's sharp black and whites with no in-betweens, or unless you add a colour burst. Instead, I went with warm colours to mirror the warm weather. I got this shift dress for about £15 from boohoo quite a while back but I still really like it. Shift dresses are really comfy and great for either when it's really hot or you're really sunburnt (this dress got me through a very painful journey home from my summer holiday last year, after I fell asleep on the beach on the last day) because they don't cling to you at all, but they don't look baggy or ill-fitting. I love the heart print of this because it's so cute and girly, and the black in the print means it goes perfectly with black boots. I also think a shift dress is a good idea with over-the-knee boots because if you wear them with something tight, you can end up edging into stripper/hooker territory.

Another monochrome outfit for winter (shocker I know). It's not just staple pieces you can carry through the seasons, but also your accessories. Scarves can be worn all year round as long as you invest in a good one. I tend to steer clear of knitted scarves because you end up with wool fibres all over your clothes and your house and I think they make you feel claustrophobic (just me? okay then moving on). I also don't buy really small summery scarves because you end up not even noticing you're wearing it. I try and go straight down the middle with a nice thin woven fabric, but still enough of it to make a big scarf. In winter, I wore it with this crochet white blouse (boohoo £15) and grey tube skirt (Matalan £10), and I wore it wound round my neck so it made a full loop with the two ends hanging at the front. I added my black new look boots and like every other outfit I wore between December 20th and March 20th, I added black tights.

It's easy to add scarves to any summer outfit but you've got to be careful that a) you don't get too hot and b) you don't look like you're about to go on an expedition to the arctic circle. Instead of wrapping it all the way round my neck, I just threw one length of it over my shoulder to stop it from being either too long at the front (if I just wore it straight down) or too tight round my neck. I wanted to add some colour so I went with my asymmetric dogtooth yellow skirt (missguided £14.99), and then matched the white bralet (missguided £9.99) to the white in the skirt. To stop the scarf from looking random or out-of-place, I wore my black sandals from La Moda (£22) which balanced the whole thing out. I also liked the subtle clashing prints in the checked scarf and the dogtooth skirt. The whole clashing-prints thing is something I really seem to be loving at the minute.