What is a capsule wardrobe?
The concept of the capsule wardrobe has become more and more popular in recent years, but actually, it’s been around for a while.
THE ORIGINAL CAPSULE WARDROBE
Originally, the term capsule wardrobe was coined sometime in the 1970s by British style guru Suzie Faux. Up until then, most women had whole outfits hanging in their closets rather than interchangeable pieces. Having a capsule wardrobe – several timeless items that never go out of style and that can be combined with seasonal fashion – was considered new and exciting at the time, perfect for the modern working woman. Commonly recommended pieces for capsule wardrobes were things like pencil skirts, white button-downs and other plain and therefore versatile separates. Essentially, capsule wardrobe pieces used to have the function of what I call basics in this book.
THE CAPSULE WARDROBE NOW
Nowadays, what we think of as a capsule wardrobe is a little different. Here’s a quick overview:
• A capsule wardrobe consists of twenty to forty pieces including shoes and outerwear (but that number doesn’t include accessories or specialty items like underwear, gym gear or sleepwear).
• It is is intended to be a stand-alone wardrobe, that is, you generally don’t mix your capsule wardrobe pieces with the rest of your clothes.
• Since you wear only a small selection of pieces, you need to regularly rebuild your capsule wardrobe to keep it tailored to the current weather season. Each time you rebuild your capsule wardrobe, you pick clothes from your entire closet (or from storage). Once you’ve made your choices, all your other clothes are on hiatus until it’s time for the next season. Your capsule wardrobe is essentially the ‘active’ part of your entire closet.
‘How big should my capsule wardrobe be?’
The ideal size of your capsule wardrobe depends on three factors – style, lifestyle and need for variety:
STYLE
If you like simple outfits, you will need fewer pieces than someone who loves a layered look.
LIFESTYLE
If you have to dress for a range of different occasions, you will need more pieces than someone who can wear the same type of outfits every day.
NEED FOR VARIETY
If you like having lots of options, you will need more pieces than someone who doesn’t mind repeating outfits relatively frequently. Bottom line: There is no one perfect number. Feel free to aim for a range as you set out to build your capsule wardrobe, whether it’s twenty to twenty-five or ‘around forty’ pieces, but be prepared to adjust that number if necessary.
Why build a capsule wardrobe?
A commonly touted benefit of capsule wardrobes is that they make it easier to choose outfits in the morning because all the pieces in your wardrobe work well with each other. Building a capsule wardrobe is also supposed to be a great way to become a smarter, more thoughtful shopper. And all of that is true! But here’s the thing: if you work with the techniques in this book, you’ll get the same result. You don’t need to limit yourself to a low number of pieces to dress well, have a closet of pieces that all work well together, or curb impulse shopping. You can achieve those things no matter how many clothes you want to keep in your closet. In fact, for some people, forty pieces is close or even above the number they would wear either way (keep in mind we’re excluding things like underwear, accessories and special occasion clothes here). In that case, their wardrobe is both a capsule and a regular wardrobe, and it doesn’t really matter what they choose to call it.
So why build a capsule wardrobe at all? Why consciously choose to limit what you are wearing? From my experience, there are five types of people who do well with the concept. If you are one of them, consider giving it a try!
YOU LOVE SIMPLICITY
Some people (myself included) simply like the idea of owning a perfectly curated small set of clothes. In her book Better Than Before author Gretchen Rubin calls this group of people simplicity lovers. They derive a sense of pleasure from organising and getting rid of things and are easily overwhelmed by too much going on around them. On the other end of the spectrum there are the abundance lovers, who like having lots of options and variety. They are often avid collectors and their living space is usually overflowing with stuff and decorative tidbits. If you are an abundance lover, the thought of limiting your wardrobe to a small set of clothes will sound stifling to you. But if you are a simplicity lover, it’s right up your alley!
YOUR WARDROBE STILL NEEDS A LOT OF WORK
If your current wardrobe contains barely any clothes you like, it can be helpful to aim for a capsule wardrobe first rather than a complete closet overhaul. It’s the difference between organising a small get-together with friends and planning a multiday wedding weekend with five hundred guests. There are less moving parts to worry about and you’ll reach your goal sooner. You’ll end up with a stand-alone, functional core set of clothes that you can then expand on or just keep wearing as is.
YOU WANT TO GET MORE CREATIVE AND MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR EXISTING CLOTHES
If you find yourself shopping for new stuff whenever you’re out of outfit ideas, building a capsule wardrobe is a great way to challenge yourself to make more out of the clothes you already have. Have you heard of the ‘30x30 Remix’? It’s a fun wardrobe challenge made popular by Kendi Skeen of the blog Kendi Everyday. Here’s how it works: you choose thirty pieces from your entire closet and then try to build thirty different outfits with your thirty pieces throughout the next month. Of course you can also just choose twenty pieces and do it for twenty days, or wear thirty pieces in as many different ways as you can for three whole months. It’s up to you!
YOU HAVE TO STICK TO A DRESS CODE FOR WORK
As mentioned here, I recommend building a separate wardrobe for work if you have to adhere to a dress code or just want to wear a different style during business hours. That way you’re free to fully express your own personal style during your free time and have a set of perfectly functional and appropriate clothes for work.
YOU ARE TRAVELLING OR HAVE A BUSY FEW MONTHS AHEAD
Having a lot of options isn’t always a good thing, especially when you’re ridiculously busy and don’t want to waste what little time you do have in front of your closet deciding what to wear, or if you are living out of a suitcase. Whenever I have a busy month of travelling or work coming up, I put together a versatile twenty-piece capsule wardrobe that will work for all the different activities I have planned. I’ve done this many times over the last few years, and it’s always been a huge time- and energy-saver because I can literally just grab an outfit and go in the morning. You can use the same trick to save time as you finish up your thesis, spend time at home with your newborn, hustle through the busiest time of year for your business, or travel for an extended period of time. Do a little bit of extra planning up front to build a flexible, versatile wardrobe and then feel free to forget all about your clothes for a while, because it’s already been taken care of.
‘How often should I rebuild my capsule wardrobe?’
The answer depends on why you built your capsule wardrobe in the first place. If you want to keep wearing a capsule wardrobe for the foreseeable future, either because you love the simplicity of it or have a work capsule, a good time frame to rebuild is every three months, to keep your wardrobe tailored to the weather. When I was still regularly wearing a capsule wardrobe, I would rebuild it at the beginning of every October, January, April and July – just before each new season. Skip to here to read more about how to maintain and update your closet year-round.
If your goal is to get more creative when it comes to using the clothes you already have, you may choose to rebuild your capsule wardrobe more frequently, for example every one or two months. That way you can include different pieces each time and eventually get to know your entire closet.
And of course, if you just want to wear a capsule wardrobe for a fixed period of time, for example while you travel or finish up a big project, y
ou don’t have to rebuild your capsule at all and can simply go back to wearing your entire closet as normal.
And remember: Rebuilding your capsule wardrobe does not mean buying a whole new wardrobe. Instead, take your pick from everything you have in your closet and in storage right now, and then, if you are still missing a few crucial pieces to round everything out, go ahead and buy them.
How to build a capsule wardrobe
Essentially, a capsule wardrobe is just a regular wardrobe in a mini format, and you can use all the same techniques we’ve talked about so far to build it.
The only extra tip I have for you is this: the more carefully you plan your capsule and select your pieces, the better.
If you want to keep your capsule wardrobe below a certain size and be functional at the same time, every piece really needs to pull its weight. There is no leeway, no room for pieces that you only partly like or that work only as part of a single outfit, like sparkly statement tops that you might get to wear once a month. Each piece in your capsule should fit your style 100 per cent, be practical, and be something that you can wear in lots of different ways, multiple times in a month or even in a week.
Here is the general process I recommend you use to create your capsule wardrobe, along with the relevant chapters in this book:
STEP 1 DEFINE THE ACTIVITIES FOR WHICH YOUR WARDROBE SHOULD BE TAILORED
If you have already created a pie chart for your everyday lifestyle (as shown here), you can simply use that as the basis for your capsule wardrobe. Create a separate pie chart if you are building a capsule solely for work or a specific time period where you’ll be wearing different clothes than you usually do (such as for travelling).
Relevant chapter: Chapter 8, How to build a wardrobe that fits your real life (not your fantasy life) (here)
STEP 2 CREATE A MINI STYLE PROFILE
Your capsule wardrobe style profile should be a more defined version of the style profile you have already created for your overall personal style here. Make it as specific as possible (‘light blue and pistachio’ instead of ‘cool pastel shades’) and tailor it to your pie chart of activities and the weather. Also keep in mind that your style profile will need to be smaller in range: you have only a limited number of pieces to implement it with, so instead of including six different fabrics for example, choose two or three favourites that work well with each other, so you can mix and match all your pieces.
Relevant chapter: Chapter 6, Putting it all together: your style profile (here)
STEP 3 CREATE A BASIC WARDROBE STRUCTURE
Based on your pie chart and your mini stye profile, write down a structure for your capsule wardrobe that specifies how many pieces it should include of every item category: for example, jeans, tops, trainers, and so on. Definitely include your outfit formula ingredients as item categories and any other types of items you like to wear regularly. Use the laundry ratio technique from here to figure out an optimal number of pieces for each item category, based on how often they need to be washed.
Here’s an example of what your basic wardrobe structure could look like:
• Straight-cut jeans: 2
• Wide-leg trousers: 2
• Skirts: 2
• Coats: 1
• Jackets: 1
• Blazers: 2
• Cardigans: 4
• Knit jumpers: 5
• Tank tops: 4
• Long-sleeve T-shirts: 3
• Loafers: 1
• Pumps: 2
• Trainers: 1
Relevant chapter: Chapter 11, Working with outfit formulas (here)
STEP 4 ADD DETAIL TO YOUR STRUCTURE
Next, go through your closet to pick out any items you definitely want to include in your capsule wardrobe and add these to your structure (as long as they work with the mini profile and the pie chart of activities you created).
Then, figure out what you want each missing piece to look like, in terms of its colour, material, silhouette, and so on. To make sure your missing pieces form a versatile, mixable capsule wardrobe in combination with the pieces you already own, it can be helpful to refer to any of the three strategies I showed you in chapters 9 to 11: closet composition, colour palettes and outfit formulas.
Be prepared to go back and forth a couple of times between picking out clothes from your closet and defining missing items, until you have found a good mix.
Here is what your capsule wardrobe structure might look like after this step:
2 pairs of Straight-cut jeans
• Dark-wash ✓
• Medium wash ✓
2 pairs of Wide-leg trousers
• Black ✓
• White ✓
2 Skirts
• Forest-green pencil ✓
• Grey mini with lace hemline
1 Coat
• Grey wool ✓
1 Jacket
• Medium-wash denim ✓
2 Blazers
• Black ✓
• White
4 Cardigans
• Forest-green ✓
• Plum (long-line) ✓
• Black ✓
• Dusty rose
5 Knit jumpers
• White cable knit ✓
• White with lace appliqué
• Grey ✓
• Embellished black jumper ✓
• Plum/rose Fair Isle
4 Tank tops
• Black satin ✓
• Grey cotton ✓
• White
• Black/white sequinned ✓
3 Long-sleeve T-shirts
• White/navy striped ✓
• Grey dolman ✓
• Simple black V neck ✓
1 pair of Loafers
• Black with tassels ✓
2 pairs of Pumps
• Black K
• Plum ✓
1 pair of Trainers
• Grey ✓
✓ What I own already
Relevant chapters: Chapter 9, Closet composition 101 (here); Chapter 10, Selecting a versatile colour palette (here); Chapter 11, Working with outfit formulas (here); Chapter 12, Business hours: Tweaking your wardrobe for work (here)
STEP 5 WRITE A SHOPPING LIST
Now that you know what you want your capsule wardrobe to look like, you can follow the four-step overhaul I described in chapter 13 to implement it and prioritise missing pieces.
Relevant chapter: Chapter 13, Overhauling your wardrobe: A step-by-step road map (here)
STEP 6 PLAN OUTFITS
Reserve some time to get to know your new capsule wardrobe inside out and come up with a repertoire of go-to looks.
Relevant chapter: Chapter 15, Become your own best stylist (here)
Get to know your new-and-improved wardrobe inside out, build up an arsenal of styling tricks, and challenge yourself to come up with a bunch of new go-to looks that all reflect your personal style perfectly.
Building a great outfit is like cooking a yummy dish: you need high-quality ingredients but then you also need to combine them the right way and add the right spices.
If you’ve just overhauled your wardrobe or added a few new pieces, you’ve already stocked your pantry with lots of great ingredients. Now, as the last step on the road to your perfect wardrobe, it’s time to figure out how to best use those ingredients to build outfits that are 100 per cent in tune with your personal style.
You should conduct a fitting after a major wardrobe overhaul, biannually as part of your preseason wardrobe prep and whenever you want to switch up your look.
So get ready to flex your styling muscles and reserve at least two hours for a fitting! A fitting? Yep!
Costume designers and fashion stylists host fittings with their clients to test-drive all the outfits needed for an event or on set, and they tweak, tailor and fine-tune them to perfection. Even if you don’t have a big awards show to go to any time soon, you can still use that same hands-on approach to familiarise
yourself with your new wardrobe, learn how to make the most of it, and become your own best stylist.
What to do during your fitting
Your mission is to get creative, experiment and play dressing-up! Try on a ton of combinations and fine-tune them using accessories and other styling tricks until you’ve come up with a bunch of new looks that you can’t wait to wear.
WHAT YOU NEED
• The mood board you created to summarise your personal style (for reference)
• A full-length mirror
• A camera or your smartphone
• Your style file for note taking
• A favourite upbeat playlist of music
Start each new outfit by first picking your main ingredients: trousers, tops, shoes, and so on. Use your outfit formulas as a guideline, or just put together a good mix of basics, key pieces and statement pieces. Once you are happy with your ensemble, garnish it! Add a dainty necklace, belt, cute scarf or stack of bangles. Scrunch up your sleeves, put on a bright red lipstick or a cat eye (or both), and tie a shirt around your waist. (Check out here for a list of styling tricks.)
The Curated Closet Page 11