Capsule Wardrobe for Me

I’ve been really interested in this capsule wardrobe idea for a while now. Yes, I’ve done the SWAP on Pattern Review and even won it once. But for some reason, I never seem to wear those peices often or together. I hate, hate, hate having those pieces in your wardrobe that take up space and never really go with anything. I’ve been pinning capsule wardrobes for a while now (all my other boards on Pinterest) and I want to do one on my own just to see if I will actually wear everything together. Eventually I want to make a school appropriate capsule wardrobe for my kids. Especially the little one. She tends to either 1) wear the same items over and over again, or 2) wear all her crazy print pieces together. I think if I made a wardrobe and put up little pictures/drawings for her, she could pick and choose what goes together and actually look somewhat put together.

I have really fallen in love with the blog, PuttingMeTogether.com. She’s got great easy stuff and I like her laid back style. She’s got some great tips on how to make a mix and match wardrobe. She has a quick and easy formula and that’s what I’m using for this little experiement. I’ll be modifying this just a bit to include two scarves and as many damn pairs of shoes as I want. :) This is from my closet, not for a trip.

(from: PuttingMeTogether.com)

• 4 tops
• 3 different colored bottoms - skirts, pants, shorts, etc.  Each bottom needs to go with at least 3 out of 4 tops, but you'll maximize your outfits if they each go with all tops.
• 3 completer pieces - The more different they are from each other, the more varied your outfits will look.  For example, a vest looks and provides a much different feeling for an outfit than a cardigan while two cardigans of different colors might feel the same after a while.  Not always, though!  And if you don't care as much about outfit variety then it doesn't matter either.  This year I went with a pullover sweater instead of a third completer piece.  I like how it worked out!
• 2 pairs of shoes - I usually limit it to just 2, and in this case it's a pair of riding boots and a pair of ankle boots.  They're both neutrals so I can wear either of them with any outfit. 
• 1 scarf - Usually I've gone with 2 scarves, but this year I only felt the need for one and I think it worked out fine.  Plus, I realized scarves are actually kind of chunky and take up as much, if not more, packing space than adding another top.  I could have easily added a 5th top in the place of that 2nd scarf that I didn't pack.  
• A handful of necklaces - This year I think I only used 2 necklaces, whereas in the past I might have used more.  I think it's because I brought more patterned pieces this time. 

 

Here’s what I’ve come up with (shocking they are mostly Jalie, I know):

You can see I went with a blue/orange group of colors. If you followed along with my last SWAP from Pattern Review, you will know this is totally different than last time. I’ll give you guys updates along the way. I’m not planning on putting these pieces into rotation until the whole she-bang is done. Then I’ll take a billion pictures and you can let me know if you like the whole concept start to finish.

 

And because my dog is hairy, cute, and wet right now.