Happy spring! In this post, I will talk about creating a capsule wardrobe for my favorite season. Here are some of the concepts we'll go over:
What is a capsule wardrobe?
How to design a capsule wardrobe
How do I choose what goes in the capsule?
What do I do with the rest of my clothes?
Do I need to shop for pieces for my capsule wardrobe?
How many items should I have in my collection?
What happens if I need something that isn't in the capsule wardrobe?
The benefits of using a capsule wardrobe
Details about my personal capsule wardrobe
I briefly mentioned capsule wardrobes in my last post, which was about how minimalism makes life easier. As promised, now you'll get the full scoop and lots of tips I found while learning how to build my own capsule.
What is a capsule wardrobe?
If you haven't heard of this term before, a capsule wardrobe is a downsized collection of clothing, shoes, and accessories that you can mix and match for versatile looks. Typically, the wardrobe is used for a season, and then all or part of it is switched out for the next season.
How to design a capsule wardrobe
There are lots of different opinions about how to create a capsule wardrobe. I read about a few of them and chose what I liked best to create my own capsule. Here are the guidelines I decided on:
- Every piece has to be in good condition and expected to last through the season. They all have to fit, be comfortable, and be something I feel good about when I'm wearing.
- The capsule has to be fewer items than I own that I would normally wear during that season. So if I have 50 items that I would normally wear during the spring, it's cheating to include all 50. Some of them have to be left out. Out of 50, I would probably say 40 or 45 would be my max for the capsule, but that's just a general idea, not a hard-and-fast rule.
- Each item has to match up with at least 3 other pieces in the capsule. This is how I narrowed down what to include--so if I had a top that would only look good with one pair of pants, that stayed out of the capsule.
- The collection does include outerwear, like jackets and sweaters, but doesn't include sleepwear, swimwear, and workout clothing. I'm not counting hair clips or hair elastics because I never use anything fancy. I'm also not including socks, because that just seems silly. All my socks are basic and are hidden by my shoes. But if I was including tights, I would have those as part of my capsule because they're more visible. Don't fault my logic--you do you.
Some people do a "work outfits capsule" and a separate capsule for clothes they wear outside of work. If you have a job with a strict dress code that doesn't match your off-work attire at all, I guess that's a good idea. But that isn't really necessary for me right now, and probably not if I ever transition back into an office.
I used a few more tips, but I'll talk about those more later in the post.
How do I choose what goes in the capsule?
Once you have your rules ready, you want to start reviewing all the items in your closet. I would start with clothing and move on to shoes and accessories after.
I took out all my clothes (except for PJs, underwear, socks, and workout stuff) and put them on my bed. First, I put aside the stuff that I know I'm not going to be using in the spring, like my winter coat and snow boots (I hope, anyway!).
Next, I took out any items that I should have donated last spring--stuff that I just don't wear anymore because I don't like it or need repairs.
Once that's done, I had a much smaller pile of clothes. I separated them into dresses, tops, bottoms, and outerwear. This is where I brought out a notepad and a pen. I made a list of all the pieces. Then I put together outfits in my head. Each time a piece made it into an outfit, I put a checkmark next to each of them.
When I ran out of ideas, I looked at my list. For the clothing that didn't have 3 checkmarks next to it, I asked myself if there were any more outfit combinations I hadn't thought of. Or, if I even cared whether this stayed in the capsule or not. More clothes got eliminated this way.
Next, I went through the same process with my shoes, belts, bags, and jewelry.
What do I do with the rest of my clothes?
So you're not tempted to sneak more clothing into your capsule wardrobe, I recommend taking the rest of the items and putting them elsewhere. I do this anyway for my off-season items, so it was no different in that aspect. There was just more clothing to put away this time. You can put them in storage bins in another room, in a different closet, under your bed, or wherever. Just try not to leave them in the same place as your capsule wardrobe.
This is a good time to donate anything you don't want anymore, too!
Do I need to shop for pieces for my capsule wardrobe?
Of course, the fashion industry has caught on to this trend of creating capsule wardrobes. If it were up to them, you'd buy all brand-new clothes for each season's capsule! But since I'm not a trust fund kid, I used a lot of what was already in my closet.
However, I was going for an overall neutral look (I wanted to wear mostly black and gray), so I ended up buying a few things to fill in some gaps. I probably could have done without the new clothes, but I was still phasing out my shopping habit. Plus, I donated a lot of stuff, so in the end, I have fewer clothes than I did before.
If you usually buy a lot of pieces on impulse, you may want to plan ahead a month or so with your capsule wardrobe. What I mean by that is, if you typically buy something just because it's cute or on sale, but doesn't necessarily match with anything else you own, then you might not have the right clothes to mix and match into several outfits. If you want to give the capsule a try, you might have to buy more clothing at first to make it work.
This is probably against some minimalist rule, but in my opinion, a capsule wardrobe isn't necessarily about wearing fewer clothing pieces. It's about reserving your time and energy for other things that are more important than the precious minutes (or hours) you might spend trying to figure out what to wear.
How many items should I have in my collection?
Steve Jobs had a capsule wardrobe to the extreme, where he wore the same thing every day: a black long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and sneakers. I believe he said he did it so he could better focus his creative energy.
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| Courtesy of www.businessinsider.com |
Obviously, it isn't necessary to go to the extreme of having several sets of identical clothing. Most of us prefer more variety than that! We aren't all running multi-billion-dollar companies, either, so maybe we don't need as much brainpower focused on something other than clothes?
Anyway, for us non-billionaires who just want to make getting ready slightly less complicated, how many items should be in a capsule wardrobe? I don't have a strict answer for you. Like I said, I ended up with fewer clothes than I would normally wear, but I didn't want to limit myself too much for my first try. I do see a lot of examples that have between 30 and 40 items, for your reference. I'll tell you how many pieces I have in an upcoming section of this post.
What happens if I need something that isn't in the capsule wardrobe?
Then add it in. Obviously. If you get invited to a black-tie event and you don't have any formal wear in your capsule, then take it out of storage, buy it, whatever. Then put it away again after the event.
However, if you realize that you made a mistake in your planning and left something important out, try to swap it out for something you're not using as much. But in the end, you have to do whatever you're most comfortable with. I doubt the fashion police are going to come to arrest you regardless. These are all just suggestions based on the decisions I made that worked well for me.
The benefits of using a capsule wardrobe
This spring is my first-ever capsule wardrobe, and I wanted to try it for a few weeks before I published this post. So far, the biggest change I noticed is how clean my closet seems. It's so empty! I didn't realize how cramped things were until I moved out everything except my capsule wardrobe.
It also definitely made things easier for me to choose an outfit. I feel like I can pick up just about any piece of clothing and match it with any other piece of clothing in this wardrobe. And yeah, everything is in neutrals, so why wouldn't it work together?
My time getting ready has been reduced down to how long it takes me to put the clothes on. Really fast. I love it!
My only complaint is that sometimes, I want a little pop of color, and I didn't allow for that. I thought about swapping stuff out, but I decided to wait. For the next season, I think I'll try to challenge myself some more with non-neutral colors.
Details about my personal capsule wardrobe
I thought about making one of those collages that other people have done with their capsule wardrobes, where they have all their pieces laid out in outfits or grouped by type, all in one picture.
But I have no idea how to do that, nor do I want to try to photograph all my pieces of clothing. So instead, I found shopping websites that have pictures of my clothes (or something close). If I found a website, then the clothing has a link. If not, I just described the clothing.
Here's my neutral spring 2021 capsule wardrobe!
Shoes: ðŸ‘
1. Skechers flats in black
Outerwear: 🧥
7. Gray zip-up hoodie
8. Crochet poncho
Tops: 👕
9. Black cotton tank top
10. White cotton tank top
12. Gray 3/4 sleeve knit top
13. Mossimo black sleeveless peplum top
Bottoms: 🩳
14. Gray leggings
15. Dark wash denim shorts
16. Dark wash jeans
17. Black Capri-length leggings
18. Fair Indigo black pencil skirt
Dresses: 👗
21. Strapless knee-length sundress in black
Jewelry: 💎
23. silver ring with Om symbol 🕉
24. plain silver hoop earrings
28. vintage-y crystal and silver bracelet
Accessories 👛👒🕶
29. black cotton purse
30. shiny black purse
32. sun hat
33. sunglasses
I laughed when I counted all of these up because there's a capsule wardrobe concept developed by minimalist Courtney Carver called Project 333 (pronounced "three thirty-three", which I think refers to 33 items every 3 months). She has a book, an online course, and a free challenge you can participate in. I found her blog posts about capsule wardrobes a good starting place to figure out what works for me.
I wasn't aiming for 33 items or any other number. I just followed the instructions I wrote above and that's how it turned out!
I'm definitely having fun with this though. I love organizing stuff, so even the planning part was fun for me. I'm looking forward to doing this again for the summer, at which point I'll update you on how the spring capsule worked for me and give you the details about my summer capsule!
