There are many reasons you may want to start building a capsule wardrobe.Minimizing and simplifying our lives is more than a trend that Marie Kondo came up with when we created her tidying up technique.
The main authority on the capsule wardrobe movement is Caroline Rector who is also the creator of Unfancy.com, where you can find tons of resources on creating capsule collections (including her wonderful wardrobe planner). She describes a capsule wardrobe like a mini wardrobe of versatile pieces that you love to wear.
Caroline recommends 37 items as the golden number and varies by season. You should take what you have in your closet now, size it down to 37 wearable items, and then test wear only those items for 3 months.
The first thing you want to do before putting together your capsule collection is open that closet (or drawers, whatever). Try not to get overwhelmed by the disarray of clothes everywhere if you are anywhere like I am, which is messy.
I don’t think there is any “right” way to create a capsule wardrobe. As long as you have downsized your closet to a manageable number of clothes that you love and you plan on wearing in a rotation, you are good to go.
The most helpful strategy in creating my capsule wardrobe(s) was categorizing the items based on where they would be worn.
I broke them out into 4 categories:
– Workwear
– Loungewear
– Workout clothes
– “Going out” clothes (which included formal wear such as for weddings or similar events)