Capsule Wardrobe- Where Do I Even Start??
When you think about the idea of a capsule wardrobe, two emotions usually surface first- fear and awe. Awe because the concept that sounds almost impossible to create and maintain a wardrobe that all works together, fear because it’s such a large undertaking that it almost seems impossible. In this post, I’ll be outlining the 3 easy steps that I used to create my capsule wardrobe.
To briefly explain what a capsule wardrobe is, it’s a wardrobe that contains a minimal number of pieces. All of these pieces work together to create a versatile wardrobe of only pieces that you love. This allows you to be creative with what you have and have the confidence to wear everything that you own. With that being said- let’s get to the steps!
Step #1: What Kind of Wardrobe Do I Want to Have?
My journey started where most of my organizational and creative ideas do- on Pinterest. Here, there are so many different capsule wardrobe ideas with pictures, but chances are your specific style isn’t incapsulated in simply one of these diagrams. This is where you have yo decide for yourself- What do I want MY style to be?
Below is what I did to keep myself organized when it came to keeping only what I needed, I made a list of the articles of clothing that best fit the way I dressed, and put it into 2 categories; what I have and what I need to start searching for. It’s also where I decided on my basic colors that my wardrobe will consist of- this may seem constricting, but it made shopping for the pieces I needed so much easier.
Remember, when you’re listing what you have DO NOT LOOK IN YOUR CLOSET. Recall the pieces from memory, because if you can’t do that you either don’t wear the piece very often, or you don’t love it. Next comes the painful part- let’s get rid of some clothes!
Step #2: Getting Rid of The Rest
So now that we have a list of the pieces that fit within the parameters of our new wardrobe, it’s time to get rid of what we don’t love or doesn’t serve our new wardrobe anymore. Keep in mind- athletic clothes, underwear, and bras all stay.
Go into your closet and take our every piece that you listed of things that you ‘have’, make a pile of them. Next, go through your remaining closet and allow yourself a number of items that you want to keep just for the heck of it. For me, this number was 5. I mostly picked pieces that I thought would be crucial for me to have while rebuilding my wardrobe. The rest I trashed if it was raggedy, stained, etc. or I donated to Goodwill. This is going to be a little overwhelming, all in all- I think I took 5 trash bags full of clothes to Goodwill when I did this. It was crazy how much I had unintentionally attained over the years.
Step #3: What do I Need that I Don’t Have?
Just to reiterate- your capsule clothes are the ones that you wear to school, brunch, dates, dinners, etc. Your gym clothes or cocktail dresses are specialty clothes that we need to keep as long as they still fit, and we love them.
Now it’s time to rebuild a wardrobe that you love, and this is the part that was the most fun to plan for me, going into a store and knowing the exact pieces that I needed kept me focused because I knew that I was only buying what I needed. Teacher budgets are strict, we all know that- so it’s important to get quality at a great price. This is where the concept of slow fashion comes in.
Slow fashion is the idea that we live in such a ‘I want it now’ culture that we need to slow it down by buying secondhand and waiting to find the perfect piece that we have in mind. For me, this has meant that I have yet to find the perfect skirt after about a month of searching- but that I’m willing to wait for just the right thing! To give you some hope, it doesn’t always take that long. The first day I went thrifting, I was able to find 5 of the essential pieces that I needed for $50- how cool is that! The good news is, basic pieces are easier to find than specialty ones, so don’t get discouraged!
I love my capsule wardrobe, it allows me to be create, confident, and stylish in a way that I never thought was possible before! Let us here are Primary Innovation know what you think!
