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The 5 basic wardrobe items every girl should own, according to the experts

The stylish gals behind Verge Girl tell us the five most important wardrobe essentials.
Fashion & Beauty

When it comes to getting dressed, you’d think we’d have it down pat by now. After all, we’ve been doing it every day for pretty much our whole lives. Yet, some days, putting together an outfit still eludes us.

To be fair, we are a little bit out of practice after months of isolation. If you’re trying to get back in your style groove—mask on, of course—there are a few things that can help. One of the most important? Making sure your basics have your back. Style essentials, wardrobe must-haves, classic pieces—whatever you wanna call them, having a couple of fail-safe pieces in your wardrobe can take the stress out of styling. Girlfriend spoke with the owners of Aussie fashion label Verge Girl to get their top picks.

In case you have somehow landed here while avoiding TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest, Verge Girl is a label you will have seen v cute pieces from before. As well as being a favourite among everyday gals, the label also has some pretty notable celeb fans—including Ariana Grande, Gigi and Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner. Keep reading to get to know Daniella Dionyssiou and Natalia Suesskow, the Brissie gals behind the label, and their top five wardrobe-essentials.

Can you tell us about how Verge Girl got started?

We opened our first store in Brisbane city in 2007. Nat was 17 years old and Dan was 19 years old—we were just babies! Our tiny little store was so crazy busy from the day we opened it. We have always made it our mission to provide young women with affordable and cool clothing with a major focus on styling. 

There was really not much on offer for young women who wanted new and exciting clothing, but who were also on a budget. The market was really about higher-priced labels or super cheap clothes.

Filling this gap is what inspired us to start in the first place. Our goal was and still is to help young women feel confident and look cool without breaking the bank. We started our online store seven years ago which completely blew our expectations. We grew over 1000% in our first year and haven’t stopped growing since. We are now purely an online-based company.

How did you grow Verge Girl during this challenging year?

Customers have no choice but to order online—and it’s showing how easy, fun and safe online shopping can be. Girls are excited by the idea of having a new item or two or five to swoon over while being stuck at home.

Our sales have grown exponentially and we are proud to be able to have not only kept all our staff on, but also hire a number of new team members. We have purchased another warehouse, which we are working on and also leased the warehouse next door to our current space in order to cope with stock volumes and sales growth.

What’s it been like seeing celebs and everyday girls embrace Verge Girl? 

We don’t specifically target celebrities’ but we are so proud celebs like Gigi Hadid, Kendall Jenner, Kourtney Kardashian and Ariana Grande love our pieces. It is always their stylists who contact us and of course, we send them anything they like.  We think because our brand is affordable, targeted to young women and we have such a large volume of new styles weekly, when our customers see these kinds of celebrities are wearing our brand, it really validates the fact that affordable fashion is for everyone. 

What’s the ‘Verge Girl‘ vibe and aesthetic? 

The Verge Girl is young and fun. She wants to make her own way. She loves travel and friends and she stands up for what she believes in. Freedom and style are always on her mind. We love to curate the coolest looks with our signature effortless chic style. She is stylish, sassy and savvy. 

How would you describe your own style and what inspires it? 

Natalia: My style is super feminine, I live in bias-cut slip dresses in any shape and colour and layer from there. I love clashing patterns and can never have too many florals.  My wardrobe is very much about vintage mixed with modern pieces. My style is definitely inspired by Frenchy chic vibes, markets, arts and music and people I see on my travels.
 
Daniella: My style often changes depending on my mood and the weather. At the moment it is tomboy chic. In winter I live in vintage Levi’s, tees and knits. In summer my style is mostly inspired by European travels and the sun. 

What are the five trends you love that you think we’re going to be seeing a lot soon?

Our Verge Girl style and designs are not forecasted by trends as much as they are based around what women love and feel good in. 
We like to design pieces around the places women like to go and the things they like to do, also we design around the things that inspire us in the moment. We have so many designs constantly in the making and we don’t work on ranges but more on individual pieces which allow us such fluidity in our design and gives us the freedom to not have to forecast trends but be able to truly design for our customer.

What are five basic wardrobe items every teen girl should own?

1. A good fitting pair of vintage jeans

Vintage Levi's jeans

We agree classics are classics for a reason! Jeans are the backbone of so many outfits and choosing a pair of vintage ones is also a win for sustainability. The trick to scoring good vintage denim is knowing your measurements or taking them to a good tailor for minor adjustments. 

Vintage 80s Levis Light Wash High Rise Jeans, $71.37 from Etsy.

2. An oversized shirt (linen or cotton)

Verge Girl shirt

Blue jeans and a white shirt, it’s a combo anyone can wear and is endlessly adjustable. The Verge Girl founders suggest linen or cotton and oversized, but it’s all a matter of preference. P.S. linen will usually be a little more casual and textured looking and cotton generally looks ~crisper~.

The Look Button Front Shirt in White, $79.00 from Verge Girl.

3. A bias-cut slip dress

Verge Girl slip dress

Slip dresses have been pretty much everywhere since being popularised by model-types in the ’90s and they’re not going away anytime soon. A dress is already a whole outfit in itself and slip dresses are ideal because of how adaptable they are. Pair with some cute sandals and a cardigan for picnic bitch vibes or dress it up with a blazer and heels for a night-time look. 

VG A 90’s Muse Bias Cut Mini Dress in Cream, $65.00 from Verge Girl.

4. A handful of vintage tees

Verge Girl cintage tshirt

Another staple piece the Verge Girl founders think deserve a place in your wardrobe is a great vintage tee. Perhaps a few! Throw them on when you want to add a bit of character to an outfit with the barest of effort.

Vintage Tee, $109.00 from Verge Girl.

5. The perfect pair of small heels

Verge Girl heels

Okay, this one may be slightly less universal—some of us live in our sneakers and that’s perfectly acceptable and we’ll not hear otherwise. Buuut, if you are someone who wears heels, the Verge Girl founders reckon that it’s important to have a go-to pair of small heels. Whether they’re sandals, ankle strap, pumps with a low heel or (controversial) the currently trending flip-flop heel, a small heel can help elevate an outfit on occasions when your chucks will simply not fly.

Designer Studio Mules in White, $115.00 from Verge Girl.

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Want more like this? Check out: These are the tops that everyone is wearing on Instagram right now.

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