A few months ago I decided to document how many outfits I could wear out of my capsule wardrobe of 30 clothing items. So many of you were a bit baffled that I had cut my clothes down to such a “small” number. I think when you think of 30 clothing items, most just thought that would be like 15 outfits, and how could anyone be OK with wearing such few outfits. The truth is, long before I cut down all the clutter in my wardrobe, I was probably only wearing about 30 items of clothing on a consistent basis. I would wager a bit that most of us have our favourites we like to wear frequently, and that there is a lot of stuff we hold onto “just in case”; or “maybe one day”. I used to sit on the edge of my bed in my towel, wondering what could I wear today? The outfit selection and options used to overwhelm me, to the point that I often said I don’t have anything to wear! Since cutting down, and clearing out, my wardrobe is breezy and easy to see what I have and what to wear. Most importantly, I only hold onto things I love to wear and make me feel good!
A quick recap on the clothing items I used for this challenge:
- Black work skirt
- Navy blue work skirt
- Blue jeans
- Dark blue work jeans
- Black pants
- Mustard yellow pants
- Black jeggings
- blue hoodie
- orange jersey
- green jersey
- black long sleeve top
- floral dress
- black and white tunic top
- Red blouse
- Green blouse
- Cream blouse
- floral blue blouse
- floral pink blouse
- Black and white blouse
- Short blue work blouse
- Short floral blue top
- Black print top
- Spaghetti floral top
- Blue 3/4 top
I had a few items extra, which I threw out as the challenge went on. I wasn’t keen on wearing them, or they didn’t fit well. So I gave them to the local charity shop instead. I also had a black dress, a jumpsuit and a fancy dress that I put in storage (since we don’t go to many fancy outings, it didn’t seem practical to keep them part of the 30 outfit count). I have left my wardrobe on 24 items, to give me the opportunity to add some more warmer items as winter approaches. I also don’t think you need to be so rigid to keep 30 items because it really doesn’t matter what the number of items you own is, what matters is that you wear what you keep and you enjoy what you wear.
Review of my recent capsule wardrobe challenge! Over 55 outfits using 24 clothing items! Click To TweetThroughout the last few weeks, I have been wearing the above items exclusively, and found a few key outtakes from going through this challenge that I thought I would share with you:
- No one cares what you wear. Not one person noticed if I had worn my red blouse the previous week, or if I had styled a completely new look.
- I no longer spend hours getting ready, less options means it takes quicker to get ready.
- I feel so light when I open my cupboard and can see everything I own clearly.
- for a capsule wardrobe to really work, you have to really love the clothes you keep. Not kinda love – really love. It is possible to create multiple looks with only 24 items. I got to over 55 items, but definitely can think of more.
- If you plan on owning less, then make sure you buy quality stuff that lasts. Own some quality basic pieces (like black pants, jeans etc). You will wear these regularly, so its important that they last.
SO NOW THE QUESTION IS, WILL YOU IMPLEMENT A CAPSULE WARDROBE FOR YOURSELF?
Unlock the simple life,
~Meg~
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This was such an interesting read, thank you for sharing! 🙂 I did a capsule wardrobe in pregnancy and I’ve thought about trying it again but haven’t worked up the courage to give it another go yet! It was easy to narrow down pregnancy options by what the bump would fit into, haha!
I hope that you are having a lovely weekend! We have the sun back again after a pretty rainy week which is nice! 🙂
Away From The Blue Blog
Hey Mica, thanks for reading! I definitely think that it helps when you have a big life change like moving countries or being pregnant to get you inspired to start a capsule wardrobe. I have been working on it for under a year, so it will be interesting to see if I can maintain it throughout all the seasons especially since it is getting colder here and my instinct is to buy more warm clothes!