stardew valley clothes

Stardew Valley Clothes Guide: Clothing, What About It?

Stardew Valley is a vast and complex game all bound into a pixel-style farming simulator. There are so many aspects to the game, but one of the most overlooked elements of Stardew Valley is clothing. There are hundreds of clothing pieces in the game; some are easy to get, and some you’ll have to work hard to get.

Bottom Line Up Front

Clothing in Stardew Valley is somewhat of a later-game objective, as you need to have wool and make it into cloth. Then, Emily will teach you through a cutscene how to make clothing.

The only other ways to get clothing before this are through the oasis, which sells any random shirt daily, buying hats you’ve unlocked with specific achievements through the mouse hat shop, and getting boots from the mines in chests.

Clothing is almost served on a plate in small servings until you get wool. You can unlock some hats and get a few shoes, but nothing huge will happen until you unlock the sewing machine. I’ll go through everything you need to know about clothes, and some personal recommendations from me, an actual seamstress (self-proclaimed).

Clothing: Where to Get It, How to Craft It

Making or Finding Cloth

Cloth
Image From Stardew Valley Fandom

The first step to get clothing is making cloth. To get cloth, you’ll need sheep or rabbits and a loom (craftable with 60 wood, one pine tar, and 30 fiber). Placing wool into the loom will give you cloth after four hours of working, and has a chance to give two pieces of cloth instead of one. It can also be quality graded so that you can get silver, gold, or iridium.

You can also get cloth from recycling soggy newspaper with the recycling machine, which can be crafted at fishing level 4. This is probably the fastest way to get cloth.

There are a few more challenging ways to get cloth, as well. For example, mummies can drop cloth, you can trade with the Desert trader on a Wednesday to get cloth, and Emily can send cloth in the mail when you’re good friends with her.

The Sewing Machine

The Sewing Machine

Once you have cloth, a cutscene with Emily will be triggered about teaching you how to sew. Emily will appear at your front steps, asking if you know about cloth already, tells you that you can tailor all types of clothing with cloth, and offers an open invitation to use her sewing machine.

This offer ends your conversation with Emily, and a text bubble will pop up, saying you unlocked Emily’s sewing machine. So you can now sew using Emily’s sewing machine! A big hooray for the farmer.

Unlocking Your Own Sewing Machine

If you complete Emily’s quest, “rock rejuvenation,” you’ll be awarded your own sewing machine. This quest can be challenging for newer players, as you need to give Emily a ruby, emerald, amethyst, jade, and topaz within a week. They do not need to be given all at once, though.

You also need to have had the previous cutscene and have access to Emily’s sewing machine for this quest to be unlocked. You can only do it once and can only get one sewing machine.

Clothing Guide

Clothes

Once you have a sewing machine and cloth, you can start sewing.

You can make:

  • Hats
  • Shirts
  • Pants
  • And even dresses

To make clothing, you’ll need cloth and usually one other item. These additional items range from food, foragables, trash, gems and crystals, fish, etc.

Every item can make different clothing. I would list the ingredients for them all, but there are 112 different shirts alone, and some of the fun of tailoring is finding out what makes what. So the rule of saving at least one of each item applies here. I can list the most common and easy-to-find ingredients, though!

Easiest to find ingredients to sew with if you’re desperate to start (remember you still need cloth!):

  • Sap
  • Dandelion
  • Cave Carrot
  • Stone
  • Leek
  • Coal
  • Fire Quartz
  • Quartz
  • BlackBerry
  • Wheat
  • Joja cola
  • Geode

Rarest items used in tailoring:

  • Radioactive ore
  • Prismatic shard
  • Chicken statue
  • Squid ink
  • Ancient fruit
  • Dinosaur egg
  • Golden Mask
  • QI fruit
  • Ostrich egg
  • Dragon Tooth

The rarer the item does not mean the better the shirt. Remember: shirts have no effect, so they’re purely cosmetic.

Dye Guide

Dye Guide

Along with tailoring clothing, there is dyeing. You can find dye pots next to Emily’s sewing machine; all you have to do is add an item of any color to the pot and add your clothing. There are six pots: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.

You can also dye your clothes with the sewing machine, adding your already-made clothing with an item you want your clothing to be the color of. This process is easier than using the dye pots, but it’s much less fun.

Dying also has strength! The more color items you add, or the more times you dye your clothing, the stronger the color will be. To get 100% saturation, you’ll often have to dye the piece about four times. The number of times you dye something (or number of colored items you include in the dye pot) will correspond to the percentage of color saturation of your final piece:

  • Not dyed: 0% (original color)
  • Dyed once(or one colored item): 25%
  • Dyed twice (or two items): 50%
  • Dyed three times (or three items): 75%
  • Dyed four times (or four items): 100% (fully saturated color)

Most clothes cannot be dyed, so look at the lists below to see if your clothing items can be dyed; this is a good idea before possibly wasting an item.

Clothing That CAN be Dyed

Shirts:

  • Heart shirt
  • Shirt and tie
  • Striped shirt
  • Tank top
  • Crop tank top
  • Bikini top
  • Wumbus shirt
  • Letterman jacket
  • Button-down shirt
  • Strapped top
  • Tube top
  • Crop top shirt
  • Flannel shirt
  • Fake muscle shirt
  • Shirt and belt
  • Fish shirt
  • Neat bow shirt
  • Orange gi
  • Turtleneck sweater
  • High waisted shirt
  • Basic pullover
  • Dark striped shirt
  • Shirt with bow
  • Star shirt
  • Backpack shirt
  • Plain overalls
  • Sports shirt
  • Sleeveless overalls
  • Necklace shirt
  • Cardigan
  • Pendant shirt
  • Gold trimmed shirt
  • Sailor shirt
  • Green jacket shirt
  • Dark bandana shirt
  • Dark highlight shirt
  • Silky shirt
  • Short jacket
  • White dot shirt
  • Polka dot shirt
  • Blue buttoned vest
  • Red buttoned vest
  • Green buttoned vest
  • Globby shirt
  • Fringed vest
  • Island bikini

Bottoms:

  • Farmer pants
  • Relaxed fit shorts
  • Pleated skirt
  • Long dress
  • Skirt
  • Genie pants
  • Simple dress
  • Relaxed fit pants

Remember, items can be dyed directly by putting a color item in with your clothing item in the sewing machine or dyed in the dying pots in Emily’s house, with items the color of the pots. I recommend using foragables since they’re free, and I’m sure you have a ton of them already.

Hats, Hats, Hats

Hats

The Mouse House, AKA abandoned house, AKA ruined house (the actual name on the map), is where you can buy hats from a mouse once you unlock an achievement. Your first achievement will probably be winning the Egg Festival, where you’ll get your first hat: the straw hat! Hats are purely cosmetic, but they make outfits cuter, and many people collect them.

To go to the Mouse House, go down to the south of Cindersap Forest. There, each hat costs 1000g; remember that hats won’t do anything special for you, unlike rings and boots.

There are 34 different hats you can unlock at the hat mouse’s house, and some are much easier to get than others. The shop is also always open, so when it’s midnight, and you’re rushing back to your farm, you can take a quick stop to buy the latest hat.

Here are all the hats you can get from Hat mouse (my favorite mouse of all time) and how to unlock them.

  • Good ol’ cap (Earn 15,000)
  • Cool cap (Earn 250,000)
  • Sailor’s cap (Win the fishing competition at the Festival of Ice)
  • Gnome’s cap (Craft every single item)
  • Official cap (Catch 24 different fish)
  • Archer’s cap (Cook every recipe)
  • Hunter’s cap (Upgrade your house to the maximum size)
  • Bowler hat (Earn 1,000,000)
  • Cowboy hat (Complete the museum collection)
  • Santa hat (Reach level five hearts friendship with ten people)
  • Trucker hat (Craft thirty different items)
  • Cowpoke hat (Ship fifteen of every crop)
  • Cowgal hat (Ship 300 of one crop)
  • Chef hat (Cook every recipe)
  • Straw hat (Win the egg hunt at the egg festival)
  • Blue bonnet (Donate 40 items to the museum)
  • Lucky bow (Earn 50,000)
  • Butterfly bow (Reach five hearts (friendship) with one person)
  • Mouse ears (Reach ten hearts (friendship) with one person)
  • Cat ears (Reach ten hearts with eight people)
  • Delicate bow (Cook ten different recipes)
  • Tropclip (Upgrade your house to any level)
  • Daisy (Craft fifteen different items)
  • Watermelon band (Catch 100 fish)
  • Polka bow (Complete ten help wanted quests)
  • Sombrero (Earn 10,000,000)
  • Earmuffs (Reach five hearts with twenty people)
  • Tiara (Reach five hearts with four people)
  • Plum chapeau (Cook 25 different recipes)
  • Sou’wester (Catch ten different fish)
  • Eyepatch (Catch every fish)
  • Goblin mask (Ship every item)
  • Chicken mask (Complete 40 help wanted quests)
  • Elegant turban (Earn all other achievements)

You can also tailor hats. But, again, it’s the same tailoring process as with any other clothing piece.

There are many “rare” or hard hats to find in the game; there are also hats that people made speedruns off of! The living hat has a less than 1% chance of dropping from fiber and wilderness golems, and it’s a popular speedrunning hat, although it has no bonuses; it’s the rarest hat to get and is up to chance and luck.

In addition, there are hats you get after having a number of hearts with someone (listed above), some that come from Skull Cavern, etc. The ability to gain rare hats makes collecting hats fun and rewarding. Even though they don’t give any power, they’re pretty dang awesome.

Footwear

Footwear

There are 18 pairs of shoes in Stardew Valley, all giving you an immunity or defense boost of varying degrees. You can buy some at the Adventurer’s Guild (shoes can also be sold at the Adventurer’s Guild.) In addition, you can find footwear in the mines and Skull Cavern in chests or drops.

You cannot make shoes; instead, you can transfer stats over from one to another to make super shoes (my phrase for it, not an official title!) Footwear can be one of the more challenging items to obtain, especially if you don’t like mining. But don’t worry, I will list every footwear item and how to get it — some don’t even need you to go through the mines to get them. Footwear gives stat boosts that are useful for the mines, but you could also just want them to be stylish; I get it.

  • Sneakers (defense 1+) Available to buy at the Adventurer’s Guild, dropped by random monsters, and found in fishing treasure chests.
  • Work boots (defense 2+) Only found in fishing treasure chests
  • Rubber boots (immunity 1+) Available in fishing treasure chests and a rare drop from green slimes
  • Leather boots (defense and immunity 1+) Available in the Adventurer’s Guild after you’ve reached level 10 in the mines, reward in the level 10 mines chest, and can be found in fishing treasure chests
  • Tundra boots (defense 2+, immunity 1+) Available at the Adventurer’s Guild after level 50 of the mines, reward for reaching level 50 of the mines.
  • Combat boots (defense 3+) available at the Adventurer’s Guild after level 40 of the mines, found in fishing treasure chests
  • Leprechaun shoes (defense 2+ immunity 1+) only found from trains passing by dropping items
  • Thermal boots (defense 1+ immunity 2+) Drops from monsters in the mine, found in fishing treasure chests
  • Fire walker boots (defense 3+ immunity 3+) Available at the Adventurer’s Guild at level 80 of the mines, reward at level 80 of the mines, and found in fishing treasure chests
  • Dark boots (defense 4+ immunity 2+) Available at the Adventurer’s Guild after level 80 of the mines, found in fishing treasure chests
  • Emily’s magic boots (defense 4+ immunity 4+) Given after reaching 14 hearts with Emily
  • Genie shoes (defense 1+ immunity 6+) Random drops in Skull cavern, found in fishing treasure chests
  • Space boots (defense 4+ immunity 4+) Available at the Adventurer’s Guild after reaching level 110 in the mines, reward at level 110 in the mines
  • Cinderclown shoes (defense 6+ immunity 5+) Available in the volcano dungeon shop
  • Dragonscale boots (defense 7+) Found in treasure chest in the volcano dungeon
  • Mermaid boots (defense 5+ immunity 8+) found in treasure chest in the volcano dungeon
  • Crystal shoes (defense 3+ immunity 5+) Random skull cavern drop, possible 110 mines chest reward if using remixed mines rewards

But Lillie! That’s 17 pairs of footwear; aren’t there 18? Well, yes, you’re very good at counting. There were cowboy boots in the game, but they cannot be obtained anymore unless you get a mod that adds them back in, so I didn’t include them here. I don’t know why they were taken out. Maybe too many cowherds clicked their boots.

Rings! I do!

Rings

Rings, much like footwear, are beneficial for the mines or Skull Cavern. There are 30 rings in Stardew Valley, all obtainable in various ways.

Most can be found by rewards from the Adventurer’s Guild or by crafting them yourself. You can wear two rings at a time, so think strategically about which rings you want because rings give even better bonuses than shoes do. They vary from giving off light to giving you extra luck. There’s also the coveted burglar’s ring, which gives monsters a higher chance of dropping goods.

You might find different rings useful for various reasons! So here is a list of all the rings and what they do.

Just a note: “buff” will be mentioned a lot, and a “buff” means you’re given an ability of sorts for a certain amount of time. They are shown at the top of your screen in Stardew. They will provide you with specific bonuses for an amount of time that differs for each buff; it should tell you how long it will last.

  • Small glow ring (shines a light in a five radius circle around the farmer)
  • Glow ring (shines a light in a ten radius circle around the farmer)
  • Slime charmer ring (prevents damage from slimes and stops the smiled buff when attacked by slimes)
  • Small magnet ring (increases magnetism by one tile, AKA human talk; items one tile away from you will be collected still)
  • Magnet ring (increases magmatism by two tiles, AKA things on the ground will be collected from two tiles away)
  • Vampire ring (heals 2 damage for every monster you slay)
  • Warrior ring (has a chance of giving the warrior energy buff, which gives 10+ attack)
  • Ring of Yoba (has a chance of giving you the Yoba’s blessing buff, which is invincibility)
  • Savage ring (gives a 3-second speed buff for every monster you slay)
  • Burglar’s ring (has a greater chance of monsters dropping items)
  • Sturdy ring (bad buff duration is halved)
  • Iridium ring (glows, increases attack and defense, attracts items)
  • Amethyst ring (increases knockback by 10%)
  • Aquamarine ring (increases crit strike chances by 10%)
  • Topaz ring (no effect)
  • Jade ring (increases crit strike power by 10%)
  • Emerald ring (increases weapon speed by 10%)
  • Ruby ring (increases attack by 10%)
  • Crabshell ring (increases defense by 5%)
  • Napalm ring (when monsters are slain, they blow up. Does not hurt the player, thankfully)
  • Lucky ring (increases luck by 1+)
  • Thorns ring (monster takes equal damage to player)
  • Protection ring (increases invincibility after taking damage by 0.4 seconds)
  • Hot java ring (increases chance of getting coffee and triple shot espresso in a monster drop)
  • Soul sapper ring (gain four energy every time player is hit)
  • Immunity ring (increases invincibility by 4%)
  • Phoenix ring (once a day can restore the player to 50% health after being knocked out)
  • Glowstone (glow and magnet ring)

But Lillie! There’s another one missing? Can you not get the elusive 30th ring in game? Well, yes, astute reader! The topaz ring does nothing. You CAN make them, and they are currently in game; I’m just petty. But it’s the only useless ring in Stardew Valley.

Though I don’t think about the rings in game more than I should, I find the glow ring the most useful, as it emits a glow around the farmer.

You never have to place torches because of this (!!). But the burglar’s ring is one of—if not the—best, but it’s stupid to get, as you have to kill 500 dust sprites, tedious…and while worth it, I dreaded every waking moment of life while getting the burglar’s ring. You might find different rings useful for various reasons, so I recommend you try some out and see what works best for you!

So, with all that, you may be thinking…

What do I do first, and how do I even start being a Stardew Valley fashionista?

  1. Unlock the mouse house, and get your first hat. Remember that hats change how your hair looks; thankfully, if this bothers you, there’s a mod that makes it so it doesn’t change.
  2. Work to upgrade your barn so you can get rabbits or sheep.
  3. Alternatively, you can get soggy paper and put it through the recycler to turn it into cloth!
  4. Get shears, as you won’t get wool without it unless you have an Automator.
  5. Once you have your first wool, it’s time to make a loom. It takes four in-game hours to get cloth.
  6. Get through the Emily cutscene. Then, gather your supplies and start sewing!
  7. If you want rings or shoes, head to the mines or start fishing, the two most straightforward and most common ways to get shoes and rings.

Where to Store Your Clothes

Now you might be thinking, “Wow! I have all these wonderful clothes. Where the heck do I put them?” Well, there are quite a few dressers in the game.

The dresser neatly organizes your clothing items and makes for a fantastic furniture piece. You can get dressers from the traveling cart or Robin’s furniture catalog. You can store rings, shirts, skirts, pants, hats, and shoes in a dresser. Unfortunately, you cannot use them to change clothes while outside, as this item can only be placed inside.

Mods

fashion sense

Now, if that’s not enough for you, I’ve gathered a few of the best clothing mods that add to the vast library of clothing…and more.

Fashionsense is a clothing mod loader and facilitator. It adds a mirror to the game that you can change your look with at any time (you can start with a mirror or buy one for 1000g). On the mod download page of fashionsense, there is a list of many more mods that require this particular mod, and all of them are incredibly detailed and beautiful.

The best thing about this mod is that it has been translated into several different languages. You install it like any other mod, even though it is a loader. Most of the mods listed below need this mod to work, so download this first.

Skillful Clothes

Easily the most useful item on this list, this mod adds skill buffs to clothes. For instance, if you wear a fishing vest, you’ll get a boost in fishing skills, and so on. In addition, this mod makes shirts, hats, and bottoms have bonuses which are useful for basically everything.

This includes health bonuses, locational effects, discounts at shops, AUTO REVIVE (yes, you can be revived once with certain clothes), health and energy regain, and much more. It reminds me of Breath of the Wild with how this mod handles certain buffs.

So if you’re a fan of extra treats and extremely useful clothing, this mod is perfect for you. While it doesn’t add fashion per se, it does make farmer life easier.

Rural Clothes

This mod is for the fashionable and cool people out there, as it adds a ton of stylish clothes with many different styles and variations.

It feels like you’re going into a mall and finding the new clothing section. It also includes makeup (!!), something that understandably isn’t in the base game but is a fun addition with mods. Overall, if you only wanted to download one mod, this would probably be the best option, as it’s so stylish and fun.

Tailor Mouse

This mod is an excellent addition if you crave more shopping and clothing. As the title says, this mod adds a shop near hat mouse’s. This mod almost acts like a loader, like fashionsense. You’ll need to install other clothing mods along with it (listed in the link), but it allows you to buy many clothing pieces and actually go shopping. Haley would love it!

Lillie! What’s your favorite clothing?

I’m sure you’re asking that right about now. Thank you, I’m flattered. My favorites are the island bikini and the trash can shirt, followed by the ICONIC blobfish hat and cowboy boots, which are currently unavailable in the game. I love things that are sold out!

FAQs

Question: Is there any way to buy clothing in Stardew Valley?

Answer: Yes! You can buy shirts at the oasis; they have new shirts every day for 1000g. Unless you modded your game, this is the only way to buy shirts. In addition, you can buy boots and rings from the Adventurer’s Guild for varying prices, and you can purchase hats from the abandoned house, aka the hat mouse. Each hat is 1000g.

Question: Are dressers worth the money?

Answer: I asked myself this question. I can’t give you a great answer, though. Probably not in earlier gameplay, as dressers cost a decent amount.

If you don’t find a dresser at the traveling cart, they’ll be 5000g; if you do find one at the traveling cart, you can get them anywhere from 250-2500g. Tip: If you find one you like for 250, absolutely get it. Otherwise, it’s just an organized chest but only for clothing. There are four different types of dressers (Oak, Birch, Walnut, and Mahogany), so make sure you get the one that fits you the most.

Question: How do I install mods?

Answer: Installing mods is a straightforward process with Stardew Valley. There is an outstanding mod loader called SMAPI. (here’s my own SMAPI mods guide on this site). Thankfully, the download comes with fantastic instructions on how to get it working and ready to load in mods. So follow the prompts. Once you’re done, you’re ready to start installing the mods themselves!

Each mod might have some slightly different ways to install, but, for the most part, they are the same. Because all of these mods are from Nexus, I will orient this to their way to install.

Before downloading, make sure you check the requirements tab. Mods often need other mods to run; usually, it’s just SMAPI, but fashionsense is a common mod you’ll need for any clothing mod. If you don’t have the required mods, use the clickable link to go to the needed mod and download that.

Make sure to have your mod folder open, which you can see by looking at the contents of your Stardew Valley game. Click and drag the download into your mod folder, then unzip the file. This process is slightly different for Mac and Windows users but essentially the same.

Once unzipped, you’re good to go! The mod should be added to your game. You’ll know they are when you load up Stardew Valley; SMAPI should have a window that pops up, saying the names of the mods you have, which ones may need updates, which ones don’t work, and showing the ones that are good to go. And that’s it! Get modding!

Stardew Valley Clothes: Conclusion

Clothing is a widely overlooked aspect of Stardew Valley, especially if you don’t like mining (that’s me; I don’t need that stress). But I hope I have given you a little more understanding about the wide variety of clothes in Stardew Valley.

I know I learned quite a bit along the way. For example, I’ve been playing Stardew Valley for over a year now without changing my shirt once — only rings, boots, and hats. While knowing a lot about clothing might not make a massive impact on your game, it is definitely a part of the game you don’t want to miss, as it adds a visual effect that is fun and expressive.

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