It’s the time of year when teenagers migrate to their new homes: student dorms, digs, shared flats and other accommodation where they will live (and maybe learn) for the next few years.

New students are easy to spot: they arrive laden with possessions and with Mum and Dad in tow – some have packed the family cars to the roof, others have even hired a van to help them move in, but how useful is all that equipment?

This year it seems there are fewer flat screen TVS and smaller cases of new clothing as the recession continues to bite. Vast amounts of new stationery have been purchased though: retailers report good sales although all more towards the ‘essentials’ than the ‘luxury’ end of the market.

In the USA, students (and their parents) are expected to spend $808 on clothing, electronic items and furnishings for their first year of college life in 2011 and Edinburgh University reckons students should budget on spending around £13 a week on clothes.

All students are looking for ways to stretch their budgets and seeking out good deals and saving money on college clothing can help them, and their parents, to make the best of the money available.

Ensuring that a student has a sensible coat and boots that will keep them warm and dry in a climate that may be unfamiliar to them, and summer clothing that can double as simple sportswear all help save money on the long run.

Choose T-shirts that can be worn to the bar or to play a game of football, and polo-shirts that double up for seminar attendance, cinema trips and attending interviews for part-time jobs to boost the budget. Ensuring the student has lots of socks and underwear can really help them save money on laundry (and maybe even mean they don’t save up all their dirty washing to bring home with them) and some parents are buying in bulk so that they can replace stained or shredded T-shirts when those rare visits home occur. It means that they can be sure their child has clothing that coordinates together and is easy to wash and wear.

Don’t let your new student take a printer to college until they’ve investigated the costs of printing on campus – with student union cards, many colleges and academic libraries can print reports and papers more cheaply than the student can.

In a few weeks everybody will be heading back to school: for some it will be the first school day of their lives, for others it’s a familiar routine that still causes stress and hardship, but for all there are simple tips to help prevent the September blues.

Save money

•    Look out for Buy One Get One Free (BOGOF) offers on everything from school stationery through to shoes. Even if you can’t use the supplies in your own family, you can save money by buying with another parent or student and splitting the cost. Uniform clothing can be a real cost, but shopping around delivers real savings. You’d be surprised what you can find: quite a few shoe shops are even offering BOGOF deals on trainers in August so planning ahead can save you quite a bit.
•    Look at the extra-curricular activities you want to do, or your child is interested in, and work out what supplies are needed. Find out if you can buy in bulk for things like art activities, when an order for aprons, paper, paints and so on could be placed on behalf of half a dozen students, leading to free delivery and major discounts on cost.
•    Sort through your wardrobe or the child’s wardrobe and pick out what can be used again; put what is too small through the free small ads in your local paper to try and make a bit of cash, and anything worn out can be taken to a charity shop. This makes room for new clothing and might even raise a little cash to put towards it.

Save time

•    Get hold of the school calendar (often to be found on the school website) and note down all significant dates: first day of term, inset days, parent/teacher days etc. Add them to a family calendar so that you all know when you need to be together for certain events and also when you need to be around to cover days off school. Work out your back-up plan for illness (yours, the teacher’s, that of a child in your care).
•    Plan your morning and afternoon school runs. It can be good to organise a library stop one day a week so the student can use the reference section/internet/borrow books – doing it the same day every week can mean it becomes a habit that means a bit of extra homework/project work gets done without needing to nag or self-motivate.
•    Make a plan for storage: some material that comes home from school needs to be kept as coursework that will be marked at the end of the year; some needs to be kept for sentimental reasons (like those first big paintings that every parent treasures); and some probably has to be quietly jettisoned so that it doesn’t clutter up the house. Having a storage box, a scrap book and other necessary filing organised can mean you don’t have to worry about where the right stuff is months down the line.

Simple plans and money-saving ideas can make returning to school simpler, cheaper and much more fun!

Golf is both a hot topic and big business. Tiger Woods apart, the world seems to be full of talented young golfers and many people want to get into golf.  It can be an expensive hobby though, so here are some tips to help you get started without a massive financial investment.

Golf Essentials

1.    A good set of clubs the right size for you. The absolute minimum is a driver, a putter, at least one iron (7 iron is the best choice if you can only afford one) plus a wood for the fairway. And a bag, of course. Tees and balls are necessary, and a newbie needs a lot more balls (excuse the pun) that a more experienced golfer. A budget choice is cheap or ‘refurbed’ balls, they can usually be purchased at your club and save you a fortune in lost balls as you find your swing.
2.    Easy to wear shoes and clothes. They need to be comfortable and to meet the dress code at whatever club you visit. Remember that if you’re travelling around local clubs to find one that suits you as a base, the dress code may vary. Virtually no clubs allow vests or sleeveless T-shirts, and many privately-owned clubs are much stricter about the rules, some insisting on shirts with full-length sleeves and ‘golf shoes’ rather than trainers or loafers, for example. Polo-shirts work well for nearly all golf clubs.
3.    Accessories. A good hat is really necessary – something that shades your eyes but doesn’t catch your arm on the swing, so nothing with a brim that sticks out sideways from your head. Most people wear some variety of the baseball cap. Gloves are often seen as optional but for beginners they are close to vital, as they improve the grip and protect you from blisters. Remember that sun cream may be necessary but a good water-resistant jacket is more likely to be of long-term value!

You might not know what it is, and we weren’t too sure either, but apparently one of the hottest trends for this autumn and winter is the move from formal to casual at all levels. Stylesight trend forecasters say we’ll all do it. For example, knitted T-shirts are going to be office wear (although we don’t recommend being the first person in your company to try this out in the boardroom!) and leggings will replace trousers when being worn with jackets. Hmmm.

Getting the look

There’s no doubt that certain kinds of sportswear are being tipped for massive success in the next year or so: shorts like a cross between cycle shorts and scuba wear have been on the Hong Kong catwalk – they are like ‘fat pants’ for both men and women and act as compression clothing to completely change the contour of the lower body while, it’s claimed, helping to improve circulation.

Other top tips are polo-shirts in red, which has been seen as the winter’s big colour. Apart from red, most colours will be muted and cool, offering the crimson sportswear as the key item in a wardrobe that will probably mainly feature grey, ice-blue and charcoal.

As companies the size of Wal-Mart rely on Stylesight’s trend-spotting, the forecasting firm must know their business. We’re really not convinced about the knitted T-shirts though …

The UK sportswear industry is already worth over £4 billion, and that’s set to grow dramatically in the next year as the Olympics fan our love of sport fashion.

Fashion designers are working with fitness companies to create new high fashion, high performance clothing that looks as good as it feels: Adidas, Puma and Reebok have all collaborated with top designers and Nike is currently working with recycled polyester to create something called power mesh which will improve performance and recovery in athletes.

To meet the needs of modern sports stars, who are as likely to be skateboarding as taking part in classical sports – clothing needs to be flexible and stylish, to create an indentifiable personal style and to offer maximum performance. As an example, snowboarders have been matching sleeveless fleeces made of high performance fabric with personalised polo-shirts to create an individual look that is immediately recognisable in the half-pipe and at the après-ski concert.

Hooded jackets have always been popular with boxers but now they are appearing on capoeira stars too, and also feature in the wardrobe of DJs mixing at festivals this summer.

If you have to go away for a single night, to a conference or to meet a client or even to attend an interview, it can be difficult to know what to pack. After all, you might find you’re being invited to go out for dinner, or to some kind of social event and you can’t then wear the same clothes to the next day’s formal meeting.

The way to pack as little as possible and still look good is to make sure you have three tops that can all be worn in different combinations. Packing the smart way means you can still fit all your clothes into a carry-on bag so that you don’t have to check any luggage if you’re flying.

Start with a pair of good black or navy trousers (women can also choose grey or beige but men need to stick to the black or navy route). Wear them with a formal white or cream shirt and a tailored jacket in which to travel. Women can accessorise with a bright scarf or a brooch.

Pack a grey or deep blue polo shirt, or a short-sleeved shirt in pale blue and a charcoal or white round-necked, short-sleeved T-shirt.

Finally pack a pair of chinos if you’re male, or a casual skirt (but not denim) if you’re female.

If you are asked to go to a barbecue or sporting event, you can wear your T-shirt and casual trousers or skirt. If it turns cold, pull the white shirt you wore to travel over the top. Don’t worry, you’ve still got your reserve shirt to wear next day!

If you’re invited out to dinner, wear a polo shirt and smart trousers (or skirt if you’re female) – and you’ve still got your reserve shirt for the following morning!

British retailers are reporting a zoom in sales of sportswear, particularly the items being seen in the 2012 Olympic adverts on TV (interestingly, there seems to be a surge in purchases of red hair dye too, since Phillips Idowu has been seen sprinting through a shop to buy his signature flame red brand!) but how does should average or less athletes approach the idea of looking good in sportswear.

Obviously your saggy old kit isn’t going to do the job. Most of us would benefit from an upgrade: our baggy T-shirts replaced by crisp new V-neck tees, our old trackies boosted into stylish shorts, but be careful – some styles work only for the ultra-fit. Lycra cycling shorts should be left for those who are at medal status: most of us look better in something that has a more generous cut like mid-length shorts. Running vests and tank tops look fantastic on both men and women too, but only if you have toned arms and abs, otherwise it’s better to cover your deficiencies with a short-sleeved polo-shirt that is kinder to your wobbly bits.

Remember to wear a hat and to wash it regularly so it doesn’t get a sweat ring. Baseball caps are best for sunny weather but those who work out early in the morning may find a snug beanie hat more suitable.

It’s really difficult to create perfect outfits if you don’t know the basics and because men are never given ‘grooming advice’ any more (unless they attend one of those few schools that seem to supply almost all our politicians, lawyers and thinkers) most guys spend all their time not shopping, not coordinating and not feeling good about what they wear.

Pick a colour, (almost) any colour

As long as you pick from the classic range: grey, black, navy, beige or chocolate brown, you’ve got it made. This is your base colour and in deciding which one to pick, it’s good to look at your hair colour. Black hair should avoid black, red hair should avoid brown and beige, grey hair should avoid grey. Other than that, just choose one from this basic palette.

Matching is not rocket science

Spend your money on what will last you a lifetime. One really good well-fitted (if necessary get it tailored to your body) single-breasted jacket in your chosen colour and two pairs of leather shoes, one brown, one black, both lace-up. Those three items are the spine of your clothing success.

Casual is king

Now choose your other most casual items: polo-shirts, T-shirts, shorts and sportswear, from the darkest end of your chosen colour, so that’s navy blue for the blues, charcoal for the greys, deep brown for both beige and chocolate. Black, natch, is black.

The lighter end of your spectrum is for more formal clothing: cotton shirts, ties, belts, and so on.

This gives you a range of clothing that ALWAYS works together.

Choosing made easy

If you really can’t work out how to look good, the rules are simple.

1.    Stick to your base colour.
2.    Never choose an item that doesn’t contain your base colour to at least 50% of the item’s surface area.
3.    Only wear one pattern at a time.

Jeremy Hackett, co-founder of Hackett, the classic clothing expert, says that the rugby shirt could be this year’s big hit, because, he says, there’s ‘a nostalgia for the authentic and original shirt made from heavy duty cotton’ which is partly a response to the fact that the modern rugby shirt as worn by international sportsmen is no longer cotton, nor heavy duty.

The slimline, collarless item worn to play the game bears no resemblance to the old-school shirt and that’s freed up the traditional cotton garment to become a retro-classic.

There’s a versatility to the rugby shirt that’s rare: it’s got a collar so you can (just) wear a tie with it. It’s long-sleeved so it passes as smart casual, unlike the short-sleeved polo shirt, you can wear it over a vest or T-shirt like a jumper, and it’s sexy when worn by a woman, particularly if she’s borrowing it after staying the night!

It’s also one of those unusual garments that allows a man to wear a ‘feminine’ colour such as pink, purple or baby blue, without being considered effeminate. Don’t ever tuck it in though, that’s a fashion faux pas.

The Rugby World Cup will be held in New Zealand this year and the uniform worn by volunteers has just been revealed. It’s a light blue and silver design of track suit, polo-shirt, baseball cap and T-shirt (but, surprisingly, no rugby shirt!) all adorned with the distinctive mangopare (hammerhead shark) and koru (fern frond) designs that incorporate the Maori traditions of strength and fellowship.

Around 7,000 volunteers will wear the kit, and it’s specially designed to help each member of workforce ‘feel they are part of one great team delivering something unique’ as well as being distinctive enough for rugby fans to pick out the volunteers at a distance when they need assistance.

Most volunteers seem pleased with the uniform and keen to wear it when the Cup starts. Volunteer uniforms need to be:

•    Distinctive
•    Comfortable
•   Available in a range of sizes
•    Suitable for all cultures
•    Easy to wash
•    Durable
•    Able to express something about the cause they support.