I am all about the capsule wardrobe. Having a foundation of key-pieces that you know you love? Right up my alley! Now...as for not shopping for more clothes to add to the mix? There's the hard part - shopping is truly my favourite down-time activity! All that to say, I am still really in love with the concept.
Last Spring, we went through "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up" and subsequently purged our whole house (and I mean purged!). I kept only what I knew I loved, in every aspect, but the most significant change for me, was my wardrobe.
Gone were the ripped tank tops, the $6 flip flops & that dress that I never even took the tags off of. Gone were the colours I didn't love, the too-big/too-short/too-long/too-itchy. Gone! All of it! I felt like Oprah doing a massive giveaway, when I dropped off our 60 (you read that right!) garbage bags of stuff to goodwill. "You get a car! You get a car!" ...Only this time it was: "You get an old shirt! You get an old shirt! Everyone gets an old shirt!!". It was so cleansing to know that whatever I had left, I loved.
I came home to a closet that almost had an echo. I had cleared out so many things & yet I felt like I had more choices than ever to work with! Why is that? Well, either way, there it was - a bare-feeling closet, spacious drawers & a plan to make. I sat down with a sketch book & drew up some of my favourite outfits to wear, listed the different occasions I needed them for & then started to put it all together. (If you know me, you know that the making-of-the-lists is also among my favourite activities - so this was bliss!)
I discovered that I really do like just a few variations of the same things; white dresses, cropped denim, lacey/floral/eyelet detailing & always a touch of the colour "mustard". My husband states it plainly: "you are such a hippy". I am admittedly a bit of a flower-child at heart - I blame it on an awesome picture of my mom that I first saw when I was about 9. She was standing on a beach in Hawaii, with long hair down to her waist and a beautiful, bohemian patterned sundress. I instantly asked "do you still have that?!" and grew up always wanting to emulate my mom in that look (in so many other ways, too) - sunny, happy & feminine & free!
So, back to my closet...What did I keep? Well, since my purge, my closet looks like a lot of white, distressed denim & floral (who are we kidding, it totally looked like that before - but now there is la plan!). I live within what I like to call a very flexible capsule wardrobe.
I have always been interested in simplicity & the seemingly tireless endeavour to "simplify" life - so this really works for me. Do I still shop? Uh...yeah! (Within reason!) But now, I live by the "one-in, one-out" rule - and try to be faithful to donate one piece when I bring in a new one. And that's why mine is a "flexible" capsule wardrobe, because if I see a piece that I just love & feel I can't rotate something out for it, I have the flexibility to grow my capsule by 1 item.
Picture above👆🏽, is a representation of my capsule wardrobe; the 16 pieces I rotate throughout my weeks (I would say I realistically wear each of these pieces once in a 2-week span). I have always been an outfit repeater - wearing the new dress I bought 3-days in a row out of sheer excitement for the piece - so this works for me. I love the simplicity of it & it makes getting dressed (slightly) quicker (I am still a woman, though - we all know what my closet floor looks like after a frenzied outfit-choosing!).
What do you think? Could you slim your closet down to your fave 16 pieces?
Here's to the simple life!
XO,
Love from, Valerie
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