A Little Wardrobe Update...

I’ve alluded to this quite a few times on Instagram, so I thought it was high time I sat down and put together a proper post on the topic of my wardrobe. Over the summer, I noticed a shift in myself. I found that I mostly wore a handful of pieces while the rest of my wardrobe remained most untouched.

I’d heard the term “capsule wardrobe” floating around the internets for quite some time but honestly the concept didn’t appeal to me because of how restricting and narrow the capsule wardrobes seemed. How could someone who loves clothes and style as much as I do restrict themselves to only a few items of clothing?

I dismissed it and continued wearing the same outfits over and over again.

This all changed when I found Caroline Rector’s blog, Unfancy. She made capsule wardrobes seem fun, cool, and relaxed. I was struck by her approach to the capsule wardrobe – how it should essentially encompass everything about your favorite items in your wardrobe. I’d previously been under the assumption that a capsule wardrobe consisted of black trousers, white blouses, and clothing with zero personality and style.

Caroline’s formula for the capsule wardrobe was mind-blowingly simple: wear only the things that you like and that you feel good in. You can have a capsule of entirely black clothing, if that’s what you like to wear.

What a concept.

My goal was simple, too: to feel better in my clothes and be happy with every outfit I wear. I felt like I was already halfway there with my handful of clothes that got worn on major repeat, but there were still a lot of holes to fill and a bunch of pieces I owned that I knew weren’t working for me anymore.

I knew it was time to roll up my sleeves and dig into this thing once and for all.

– PLANNING MY CAPSULE WARDROBE –

In Caroline’s Capsule Wardrobe planner, she explains that your capsule should rotate seasonally and should include pieces that you love to wear. I thought this was absolutely revolutionary and a different approach to any capsule wardrobe idea I’d seen before. I decided to give it a shot and filled out the planner.

You can see my June – September 2017 planner here!

It was so interesting for me to take the way I think about my clothing out from a place of “feeling” (i.e. “I don’t like this sweater”) to pinpointing exactly why I don’t like something (i.e. “I don’t wear this sweater because it’s itchy and I need to wear a tank top underneath, which makes me too warm”).

This seems like SUCH a simple concept but so many of us (including me) don’t do this, which ultimately leads to not knowing why we are so unhappy with our clothes.

I’ve just completed my second capsule planner for the months of October – January which you can see here.

I learned a lot about what I liked to wear in my first round of capsule planning. For example, I listed a vintage red bandana dress under the “Pieces I Own + Never Wear” section because it was “too much RED.” After completing the planner, I realized that I actually liked wearing red sometimes, and the dress ended up being one of my favorite pieces to wear over the summer! I also promptly listed all of the clothes in that section on Poshmark and managed to sell a bunch to fund pieces on my wishlist (with the exception of that red bandana dress that got a second chance!).

This post has the potential to turn into a BEAST because I have a lot to say on the matter, so I’m going to promise to keep it short and sweet and follow up with regular checkups. Here’s a few of my outfits from the past couple of weeks. Nothing fancy to see here (UNfancy you could say ?), but these are my real outfits I’ve worn to work and on the weekends… mostly taken in the mirror in our work bathroom because THIS IS MY REAL LIFE.