As I’ve slowly witted down my wardrobe from 2 overly packed closet rods about half of 1 neatly organized closet rod, I’ve become less interested in rotating out my wardrobe each season and more interested in having one cohesive wardrobe that works year-round. Even during the periods I was fully committed to a capsule wardrobe, I was still thinking about how all these seasonal wardrobes worked together. My spring/summer items were bright, almost neon, at times, in contrast with my fall/winter pieces that were more neutrals and jewel tones. And during the transitional periods, I just didn’t know what to do. Should I just hang up everything I own or should I select a transitional capsule? Does that mean I’m technically going to have 4 extra capsules a year? It really just began to feel like a lot of unneccessary thought was going into these capsules, when a year-round wardrobe was really the solution. Just thinking about having everything I own hanging nicely next to each other in my closet makes my heart happy.
Tag Archives: fashion
Fall/Winter 2015 Capsule Wrap Up
It’s been awhile since I talked to y’all about my capsule wardrobe. Even though I haven’t had a public conversation, there has been a lot of activity privately surrounding the whole process. I first introduced my Fall 2015 Capsule Wardrobe with the intention that I wear it from mid-October to mid-December, depending on the weather. Being on a tight budget and not truly needing a new winter clothing led me to decide to combine my Fall and Winter capsule wardrobes for 2015 (and into 2016). Most of the pieces were going to overlap so in December, I added in a couple sweaters and some snow boots I had been storing. Flash forward – it’s April and I am finally saying goodbye to the pieces in my F/W 15 capsule. It’s been 5 months of wearing about the same pieces every two weeks. That kind of redundancy definitely makes it easier to decide what you love and what you can do without. In early February, I decided it was time to really edit down the capsule even more. I removed a few blouses, pants, and a blazer. For the two months my capsule consisted of:
PMI + Potential Year-Round Capsule
In my last post, I mentioned that the reason my husband and I are holding out to purchase a home is because we don’t want to pay PMI for having less than 20% down. One of the reasons I chose to start talking publicly about our finances is because it allows me to look at things from an outsider’s perspective. When I edit blog drafts, one of the many things I do is ask myself questions I think my readers would propose as they read through. Of course, immediately after I typed out, “I don’t want PMI so I’m saving up the 20%” I realized “but if you’re planning on paying off your home, there might be some overall savings if you take the small hit from the PMI instead of paying rent every month”. For instance, if you’re paying a $50 PMI on top of a $850 mortgage, that’s still cheaper than $1000 in rent.
Fall 2015 Capsule Wardrobe
A couple weeks ago I talked about what I learned from my summer capsule wardrobe, and how I was going to apply those lessons to my fall capsule. Here’s how it went:
What I Learned From My Summer Capsule Wardrobe
The summer is coming to a close and that means it’s time to move on from this season’s capsule wardrobe. I started the season with 23 clothing items, 4 pairs of shoes, and 11 accessories. I ended up only wearing about 22 of those 38 pieces on a regular basis. Everything else was either traded out (3 items), worn once (9 items), or not worn at all (4 items). I spent a lot of time looking over these pieces and here’s what I learned from a full three months with a capsule:
Starting a Capsule Wardrobe
If you are into fashion and style, chances are you’ve heard of a capsule wardrobe. The concept of a capsule wardrobe is to create an essential collection of clothing pieces that can be worn for a long period of time. The capsule normally has a consistant theme based around color(s) and style adding a cohesive sense to the clothing as a whole. In contract, for most of us, when we look in our closet there is not a lot of rhyme or reason, just a bunch of stuff.
Lauren, Etc. 