Capsule Wardrobe

Hi I’m Linda Fink and this week is five days of a capsule wardrobe.

Woo! What? Hey guys it’s me, Linda, and welcome back to. If you are new to our blog click right here and comment right now. But if you are a returning viewer then thank you for coming back. I have gotten a ton of suggestions to try five days of a capsule wardrobe and before this post I didn’t even know what a capsule wardrobe was. Seriously I had never Googled it before today. According to the woman that coined this term, a capsule wardrobe is a collection of a few essential items of clothing that don’t go out of fashion. That’s what they say. The main idea is to maximize the amount and the types of outfits that you can put together by using mainly staple items. And ultimately it will save you time, help you pair down, and will let you get creative with what you have, so you don’t have the sensation of looking into closet filled with clothing and think to yourself, “wow, I have nothing to wear.” Anyway I could go on for hours and give you more of an explanation about a capsule wardrobe or we can just dive right in and I can show you what I did today. And then we will talk about the topic more as we get on. Let’s do that! Today I invited Channing Hargrove, the fashion news writer at Refinery 29, to my apartment so that she can help me tackle stage one of creating this capsule wardrobe. What is the first step? Where do I start? Okay the first thing, are you ready for this? Yes. You are going to have to clean your closet out. I think you should really try to stick within the range of five to ten items. You can get really creative and kind of just challenge yourself within the challenge.

Capsule Wardrobe Photo Gallery

So you are challenging me.. Yes ..to challenge myself.. Yes. ..within the challenge? Yes. It’s a lot of meta challenges. I love it. Will you come with me to my closet? Oh absolutely! Cause I’m scared. Sure! Alright let’s go. Oh no. This half is mine.

Okay. It’s a bit of a mess. I have got another hanging section here. I actually got this shirt at Party City. I want to give it to someone who needs it more. But I’m like “I need it!” The big moment of the day we went through my entire closet. Pulled everything out and then started sorting through and making different piles. Okay, how do you feel? Sad. You want staples, and one or two statement pieces. Right. So anything that is maybe a little too print heavy or too loud in terms of color. So this isn’t making into the capsule wardrobe. No I don’t think it will. I think this is really cute, and I think you can make a lot of different outfits with this. I do think it’s important to have a trusty pair of pants. Black jeans.

Yes. Can’t go wrong with black jeans. High wasted. Alright, these make it. Let me show you some shoe options. Okay. Okay, this I love. These are comfortable but new. This is really cute. Very good option. Channing eventually left me because she had to go to work. So we said goodbye I finished up a little bit more on my own, but sooner or later I had to go to work too. So I put on my Monday capsule wardrobe outfit and now I’m home from work, and my room is complete disaster and I’ve got to go, cause I have to finish that. Late last night when it was already dark out I finished my closet clean up and the amount of hangers that were left on my floor with no clothing on them was epic. I don’t think my closet has been this clear in years! And it feels so good not only physically, to see how much space is in there, but just mentally it feels so fresh. So today I packed two full suitcases that I’m gonna bring home to where my parents live and store it there.

And then I packed up four garbage bags filled with clothing and shoes and I brought them over to a donation center. I know what you are thinking, you know want to know which items I actually picked for my capsule wardrobe. I will get there in one second. But first I just want to tell about this article I read, called how to create a capsule wardrobe. And this women’s capsule wardrobe for a three month period had 37 articles of clothing in it. And that doesn’t include your underwear, or your workout clothes, or pajamas, or accessories, and jewelry, it’s just your basic clothes. I thought since I’m only doing this for five days, I need to really pair that 37 down and make this a challenge. Drumroll please. Here is what I picked. Black high wasted jeans, a little black tank top which is longer then you think. And also it doubles as a little black dress. A button down shirt, a long sleeve shirt with stripes going in the other direction. Rose gold booties that are very comfortable cause I have to wear them for five days. And a bright coral jacket because with such neutral colors in the rest of the wardrobe, sometimes you just gotta let you color pop. This is such a short term challenge, but I’m really determined to put together a whole range of versatile outfits with these six items this week. Yesterday’s outfit once I went off to work, was my black jeans, the button down stripped shirt and my rose gold boots.

I tied a headband into my hair and I added a chunky pair of statement sunglasses. And todays outfit was this striped turtleneck long sleeved underneath my little black dress, and of course my rose gold boots. But tonight I’m meeting Michael for a dinner date. So my plan is to slink out of the long sleeve turtle neck and just leave on the little black dress. I’m going to take this choker that I have, that has a rose cold pendant and I’m going to wear that around my neck just to kind of coordinate the neck and the shoes. Keep in mind I intentionally did not make this capsule wardrobe super wintery even though it is winter. And that’s for a couple of reasons: 1. Is that it is especially warm week here and 2. Is that I want you guys to be able to use this post as guide for spring and summer too. So this is not seasonal, it’s just an an example. For today’s outfit I got a little crafty. I found a post online of Connie Wang, Refinery 29’s fashion features director, teaching you how to tie a button down shirt like a skirt. So the shirt that I wore as a shirt on Monday, is a skirt today. I tucked the black tank top into it. Threw on this choker with these feathers for a little pop of color. And put on my booties.

For the past three days I have been repeating the same articles of clothing. I have just been styling them differently and absolutely nobody at work has noticed. People apparently love button down blouse skirts. I mean that is an amazing fashion tip that can really help a person, if they somehow found themselves in a situation where they didn’t have any pants handy. But truthfully even if do have pants at your disposal, it’s still really cute. Ever since I did five days in the same outfit I have been obsessed with recycled fashion. So actually the long sleeve striped turtleneck in my capsule wardrobe was given to me second hand by a friend. And this tank top dress combo belonged to my mom in the 80’s. And somethings never go out of style. We are currently living in the world that is obsessed with fast fashion and wearing these cheap disposable articles of clothing that are made in really poor working conditions. So yes, while the capsule wardrobe can be about saving you time and helping up your fashion game. In a lot of ways this is more so about being sustainable, ethical and contributing in your own personal way to this large global movement. A few things to know about a capsule wardrobe. Number one, but probably most importantly, I’m doing a five day challenge this week so that’s why this is a challenge. But doing a capsule wardrobe is not supposed to be a challenge. It’s not about how few items you can wear and how many different ways you can wear the same item.

No, no, no. Instead it’s a lifestyle and a way of keeping your closet that you can adopt gradually overtime. For people just starting out here, it is okay if you don’t have all the essential items you need upfront. And if you need to swap something out or buy a new item to include in your capsule that is totally fine. Number two, and this is a problem that many people who create capsule wardrobes have. I feel like I’m a very colorful person and I actually love statement pieces as opposed to staples. So creating a wardrobe this week of only staples that’s mainly filled with blacks and whites has left me feeling a little bit uninspired throughout the week. Today’s look is my black jeans tucked into the booties, instead of rolled up like they were Monday. My stripped long sleeved turtleneck. And I added a pop of a bright yellow scarf to give it some life. Just remember that items like sunglasses, jewelry, purses and scarves are not part of your main capsule wardrobe. So you can really use this time to play around with accessories and add a pop of color with a bright statement piece. And number three, even though I’m getting really crafty this week by wearing the same article of clothing in multiple ways, that’s not really what the capsule wardrobe is about either. It’s more so about taking a few staples items and creating a lot of different outfit combinations with them. This is not about one piece of clothing worn five ways. That was just something I added in because I thought it was fun.

And I wanted to be innovative. And because it was very fun I wanted to do it one more time. So tonight I’m going out to dinner with my friends and I’m going to lose the scarf and the long-sleeved shirt and I’m putting the blouse back on, and I’m going figure out a different way to wear it. So what I’m doing is putting it on backwards and thankfully this particular blouse has a sort of tied knot and slit in the back, so it looks really cool as the front. And then I’m gonna button top button and second button down. But leave the rest of them open. So that it creates this open back flair look. And I’m going to see if anyone even notices that my shirt’s on backwards. All of my friends noticed that my shirt was on backwards. I have to be honest about that. But that being said, they still thought it was cute, and I thought it was cute, so I’m cool with it. Today’s outfit was all black everything except for my rose gold boots and this pop of pink on my neck. And tonight’s Friday so when I go out, I’m going to lose this neck tie and just add a pop of bright purple to my lips. Alright here are my fully condensed thoughts on a capsule wardrobe. I could probably go on with the same six item wardrobe for the rest of the month if you asked me to. But I would be feeling a little bored.

It was starting to feel limiting by the end and I almost felt as if I was on a clothing diet. And in many ways, that was really awesome, because it freed up my mind from needing to look through so much options in the morning, and it led me to clean out my closet, which felt great. The major downside is that I’m starting to miss my really brightly colored none staple items. I tend to get a lot of mileage out of my clothing and after this week I’m starting to feel like a capsule wardrobe was made for people who were not getting that same mileage. So I love that paired down my closet but I don’t think I need to stick with a capsule wardrobe. Now I want to know your thoughts on this topic, so comment below and let me know if your capsule wardrobe person or just not at all. Let’s take a poll. And as always comment below and let me know what you want to see next time for five days at a time. Hey thanks for coming back to us! click on comment button to read another post on Refinery. Right here to comment to us on . And here for my personal blog. See ya!.