Acquiring first office clothes
I'm currently a student who will be starting out in a position where business attire is almost a given. The thing is that saving up for suits, a change of shirts and dress shoes seems very hard on the thin margin I'm living at right now. Do you have any tips beyond buying everything second hand, because I'm afraid it'll show and cost me interviews? My time frame is at least six months.
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While in the interview stage you need one good outfit. Take care of them and they will see you through this stage of the process. Shoes, ties, shirt, and a suit can all be purchased on sale. The fact that you have months before graduation give you time to purchase them when there is a sale.
Off-the-rack is good enough for a suit for this stage of your life. There is no need to go custom made when you are just starting out. In fact you may find you never need more than one or two suits, and they never need to be custom made.
Like the other answers, I'm not entirely sure the equivalent exists in your country. But in the US there are thrift stores run by charities like GoodWill or the Salvation Army that sell clothes for very little money.
When my wife was in a similar situation very early in her career she learned the trick of driving to thrift stores nearest to the richest neighborhoods in town. She often found high dollar designer clothes that had been worn once (to an event or party) and then donated. Apparently it is quite gauche for the well-to-do to be caught dead in the same outfit twice. It wasn't uncommon for her to find clothes/shoes that retailed for hundreds of dollars for or so.
Sounds like you're a man, so you're in luck. Our formalwear all looks similar enough that you can get by on a very short rotation. You can buy 1 pair of decent slacks in a versatile color like navy or grey with a pair of brown shoes with matching belt then have as little as 2 button down shirts (white and light blue). You can help keep the button downs clean by wearing an undershirt.
This outfit can even overlap your interview outfit if you want to save more (especially if you want a good jacket/sport coat). The real key is to just not pick anything flashy and nobody will ever notice. You'll be running to the dry cleaners every single weekend, but you won't have much in terms of up-front costs.
For women though I have no clue how they manage this stuff.
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