What is a capsule wardrobe?
A capsule wardrobe is a self-contained wardrobe that you typically make for a season at a time. You limit it to a small number of items that are versatile enough to work together so you can create numerous outfits with just a few pieces.
Most importantly, it provides a solution to two key style problems:
“I don’t know what to wear even though my closet is full.”
Impulse buying clothes you don’t love, need, or will actually wear.
Creating a capsule wardrobe usually begins in conjunction with a closet clear-out. You sort through every piece of clothing you own, decide if you love it and/or is versatile. Otherwise, you get rid of it. Some people aim for a specific number of pieces, but the major takeaway is that you are reducing your closet only to items you will actually wear.
This guide is not meant to be exhaustive, and I urge you to dive into the YouTube vortex of minimalist fashion and capsule wardrobes for more. Here I want to give you an example of how to start.
I personally did this using the iOS StyleBook app ($3.99 in App Store), but you could easily do this on a site like ShopLook, since Polyvore no longer exists. I highly recommend StyleBook, though.
Start out by picking out an outfit you like, whether it’s from your own closet or from a Pinterest photo. Lay it out, either on your bed or in an app.
You have your first outfit! Great!
Now, pick a piece. For this example, I’m choosing the pants because they stand out in this outfit. Now you want to find other bottoms that are similar. You can do this by selecting a different color, a different cut (pants vs. shorts), a new pattern, etc.
That’s a pretty good variety of bottoms! Now you have 4 outfits instead of 1. But we have 5 pieces. We can do better than that. If we want to keep this flowy off-shoulder top as the focus of the outfit, we’re going to need different shoes.
Another important concept in building a capsule wardrobe is to make it practical for your lifestyle. The white mules are a middle-ground shoe that could be worn casually (e.g., shorts) or dressed up (e.g., trousers). So let’s add some other shoe options to dress the rest of the outfit up or down.
I wore the top with the pink shorts for a breezy summer walk in the city. I could pair the top with the black trousers and nude heels to go to a business casual event. The possibilities are building up… Now we have 12 outfits with 8 pieces! We’re getting somewhere.
This whole time our focal piece was the top. Can you guess what the next step is? That’s right, get some new tops.
The striped top here commands attention. It is patterned, it has flowy sleeves, it is a cropped length, and it has a ruffled elastic at the top. The black and white tees, however, hold a supporting role. They’re not terribly visually appealing. Your eye then has the opportunity to be drawn to the bow on the pink trousers or a pop of nude from the heels against the black trousers instead.
We’re now up to 48 outfits with just 11 pieces!
(Of course, you might have possible combinations that don’t look good together, but the point is that you have significantly more outfits than pieces.)
A cool feature in StyleBook is that you can create Packing Lists. You can literally use this to pack for a trip OR you can use it for a capsule wardrobe. Here’s a sample of my packing list for my upcoming trip to Europe. I have 21 items and 49 possible looks!
Putting it All Together with Modules
What I just showed you could be a capsule wardrobe in itself, but there’s one more detail to this. You might want more than 3 colors. Or perhaps you don’t live in California, so you need adequate winter gear included.
This “mini capsule” is called a module and it functions as one unit of (1) color or (2) type of item. Some people are afraid they’ll be stuck with mostly solids, as I showed in this example (for simplicity) if they do a capsule wardrobe, and modules solve that problem.
This module was built around the colors in the patterned top.
The important difference between a module and a capsule wardrobe is that, while modules are ideally fully interchangeable, you don’t need to match everything to every other item between modules.
If items in separate modules don’t match, that’s ok! But some will. The strength of modules is that you can choose between modules rather than having a single capsule with many pieces. Try to get at least 12 outfits out of each module. Any that overlap between modules is a bonus!
If you have StyleBook it is super easy to keep track of the outfits you come up with as I showed above. But if you don’t, try taking pictures wearing the outfits or hang your modules together so you always know what to pair.
You might be afraid to “start over”, and if that’s the case, start by making one module and see where it takes you. Once you make your first module or capsule you will feel instantly relieved. Knowing that your clothes actually function together rather than having to constantly scramble to find something that works will allow you the bandwidth to worry about more important things. Stop stressing over your wardrobe and get organized!
– Melissa (@quantumheels)
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