10 Top Travel Wardrobe Tips
I love travelling as light as possible. This doesn’t always mean travelling with only carry on. It can mean having room for other essentials - like medical needs - or in the case of my next trip, a sleeping bag that will keep me warm.
Regardless of how much luggage you plan to take, having a small, cohesive, travel wardrobe can help reduce the space required for clothing, ease your mind that you have enough outfits for any occasion, and reduce the weight you need to lug around.
The following tips will allow you to great a travel wardrobe with items that you can mix and match to create multiple outfits. With 10 items - 3 bottoms, 6 tops and 1 topper - you can create 36 outfits, while with 16 items - 5 bottoms, 10 tops and 2 toppers you can create a whopping 150 outfits! And that’s without changing your shoe or accessories!
Pack two tops for every bottom
According to Levi, jeans are meant to be worn 10 times before they are washed. While I can’t imaging going that long between washes, I am normally happy to wear my jeans, trousers, shorts, and skirts (bottoms) for two days before washing them.
For a multi-week trip where you can wash once a week, you will need 5 bottoms if you wear each pair for 2 days before washing, noting that the pair you wear on washing day won’t be washed for another week.
For a multi-week trip where you can wash once a week, you will need 8 tops if you wear each one for 1 day before washing.
However, tops tend to be more memorable than bottoms so I recommend adding an extra 2 tops.
10 tops x 5 bottoms gives you 50 different outfits - without including your toppers, shoes or accessories.
Of course, if you are exercising strenuously or getting your clothes dirty you may need more clothes to get you through the week.
Pack 2 toppers
Toppers are cardigans, jackets and coats that are worn over another top. If you pack one topper, your 50 outfits becomes 100, 2 toppers and you get 150 outfits.
Adding a topper to an outfit instantly uplifts the style of the outfit, so I recommend packing a couple of toppers, even if the weather is going to be warm. If it really is too warm for a topper, you can use jewellery, scarves or prints to give the illusion of.a third piece.
For cooler climates, I recommend choosing one lighter-weight topper and one heavier weight topper that you can layer together. This gives you 4 options that will have you set whatever the weather (no topper, lighter-topper, heavier topper, both toppers).
Pack items you can wear multiple ways
If you want to maximise the versatility of you wardrobe, then consider packing items that you can wear multiple ways. This doesn’t have to be a speciality item that is designed to be worn multiple ways. There are lots of common clothes that can be worn multiple ways. For example:
A shirt or cardigan that you can wear buttoned up or open
A dress that looks like a skirt when you add a top to it
A top that can be worn back to front to change up the neckline
A (tank) top that can be worn as a top on its own or for a pop of colour underneath another top
A collared top that can be worn on its own, or under another top with only the collar showing.
A scarf that can be tied in different ways. .
Pick an outfit formula
An outfit formula is a set of rules for pulling together an outfit.
Not all tops and toppers will go with all bottoms. Keeping to one outfit formula makes it easier to mix and match your items. An outfit formula describes the types of clothes that can be worn together. Some examples of outfit formula are: flat shoes, thigh length bottoms (think shorts or skirt) with a t-shirt and a crop cardigan; skinny jeans, boots, a button up top and a jacket; tunic with leggings and long cardigan; maxi skirt with an asymmetrical top.
If you need variety, you can include different sleeve lengths, necklines, fabrics, construction, or prints, or pack more accessories.
Pick a colour scheme
Picking a colour scheme doesn’t have to mean restricting yourself to only a few colours, although I have travelled with wardrobes that are mostly teal and orange. However, it does mean restricting yourself to colours that go together. This is not strictly necessary, but will make sure that the colours of your clothes go together without you having to test every possible item combination.
If you have a colour palette from a colour consultation, I recommend using the colours from that.
Otherwise you can use the colours from a favourite scarf or tie, pick up colour palettes from the paint section of the hardware store, or find a colour scheme you like on Pinterest. I’ve created this Pinterest list of colour schemes to get you started. The list has examples of warm and cool colour schemes. Some schemes are all neutrals, while others include one or more rainbow colours.
Include your best neutrals
Neutrals are colours like black, navy, burgundy, sage, white and white. Neutrals can be created by adding black, brown, grey or white to soften to other colours. Neutrals are great to incorporate in your travel capsule as they are not very memorable. That means that no-one will remember that you are wearing the same neutral pants as yesterday!
It is great to include at least one of your best neutrals in your travel capsule, particularly if you don’t have a lot of colour in your face. Neutrals make it easy to mix and matching different items.
A black and white capsule is easy to do, but black and white may not be your best colours. There are lots of other neutrals that you can choose - cream, beige, tan, ochre, rust, khaki, navy, grey, charcoal to name a few.
Consider brown neutrals if you have brown hair or eyes or navy if you have blue eyes. Blondes will look good in either white or cream, while people with green eyes will look good in either khaki or sage.
You can even create a travel wardrobe using all neutrals like the examples on this Pinterest board.
Choose where to wear your prints.
Unless you are experienced at mixing prints it is easier to choose to have all your prints in your tops, or in your toppers, or in your bottoms but not all three. Alternatively, you could have prints in your shoes or handbag.
If you do want to prints in two or more types of items, stripes, spots and animal prints are relatively easy to mix with other prints. Abstracts prints, graphic designs and flowers are harder to mix with each other. Prints with a colour in common are easier to mix than prints in different colours, and prints in different sizes are easier to mix than prints in the same size.
Of course, you don’t need to include any prints if you don’t like them, and you can always add interest with different textures or include prints or multiple colours in small accessories like necklaces, scarves and ties.
Include a column of colour
A column of colour is where your top and bottoms or your topper and bottoms are in the same colour. A column of colour is very flattering, so it is worth including a column of colour in your travel capsule.
You may not want to only have columns of colour in your travel capsule as this makes it harder to pull together your capsule. An outer column of colour, where all your toppers and bottoms are in the same colour is the easiest to do. However, if you want to have an inner column of colour, consider tops that are different textures, cuts, or include your column of colour in a print.
An alternative is to a column of colour is a column of value (or darkness), where the darkness of all of your tops or toppers and bottoms is the same. This allows you to have more variety while achieving a similar flattering effect.
Check your wardrobe
Check your wardrobe to see if you have enough items in the outfit formula and colours you have chosen for your desired travel wardrobe.
Rather than shopping to fill any gap, consider having a smaller capsule, or including some items that don’t go with everything else. Here are some examples of simple changes to a planned travel wardrobe of 5 bottoms, 10 tops and 2 toppers (150 outfits) that can still help you have enough outfits for your trip.
Taking 8 tops instead of 10 would give you 120 outfits.
Adding a print in a different type of item, for example including one print topper that only goes with your plain and not your print tops - say 5 tops, would give you 125 outfits..
Including an item that doesn’t fit your outfit formula, for example, if your outfit formula was trousers, a teeshirt and a long topper, you could include a skirt that is too short for your toppers as one of your bottoms would still have 130 outfits.
Adding an extra colour to your capsule will give you the same number of outfits, with more variety.
Taking two capsules of 3 bottoms, 5 tops and 1 topper would give you 30 outfits. While this is a lot fewer outfits, it can feel like more because of the variety. If you opt for two capsules, I recommend basing them on different neutrals - for example having one in navy and one in black..
Now is also a good time to check your itinerary and see if you need any special purpose outfits, such as a more formal outfit for a night at the opera, or a more causal outfits for a day’s bushwalking.
Add variety with accessories
Accessories like scarves, ties and jewellery take up very little space, but can have a big impact on the look of your outfit. If you have space, including a second pair of shoes and/or handbag can help take an outfit from casual tourist to an evening out.
An accessory that includes all the colours in your capsule is a great inclusion as it will tie everything in your outfit together, even if your top, bottoms and topper are all different colours.
If you love these tips, you can download a pdf version of 10 Top Travel Wardrobe Tips and save it to your phone so you will always have it to hand.
As well as being easier to carry, travelling with less clothes means less fuel is needed to get you to your destination. Check out my other sustainable travel tips on greener getaways.
If you find these tips useful, if you use them for your next holiday, or if you have any other tips you would like to share, II would love to hear from you.
