30 Items 30 Days 30 Outfits
30 days have September, April, June and November...
September is officially the start of Spring here in Canberra, and I can’t wait for it to arrive. I am looking forward to packing away my winter clothes and bringing out my warm weather clothes.
The only problem is that it isn’t quite warm enough in Canberra in September to pack away those winter woolies. We have had negative temperatures (Celsius) over night this week and 1 September is only forecast to get to 14 degrees.
Yet I am still feeling the yearning to mark the start of Spring with a change in my wardrobe.
Rather than hitting the shops (and I might have already done that a little) I decided to pull out a subset of my wardrobe for 30 days that looks and feels like Spring. That way when October comes - and it still isn’t warm enough to pack away my winter wardrobe completely - I will have some clothes that I haven’t worn for a while.
I really love this activity. It is like shopping your wardrobe and pulling out the pieces that you love.
It is also a good opportunity to review what you don’t pull out and see if it still fits you, suits you,and flatters you. Anything old and tired can get relegated to the mucky jobs drawer.
I decided to limit myself to 30 items of clothing from my wardrobe, because, well there are 30 days in September. This had to include all my clothes, shoes and anything made from material like hats, scarves and gloves. I didn’t count exercise gear, underwear, pjs or accessories in my 30 pieces.
30 Item Wardrobe
Now 30 pieces sounds a lot, but when you break it down, it’s not that much.
I love planning and am very practical when it comes to my wardrobe. The first goal was to make sure that I could get through the week without having to wash more than once.
For work this meant I needed:
2 jackets (each jacket can be worn lots of times between washes)
5 tops (worn once each between washes)
3 bottoms (worn twice between washes)
And for the weekend:
3 tops (the one I am wearing while doing the washing doesn’t get washed)
2 bottoms (as above)
1 jacket (I can wear a week day jacket on the weekend if my weekend jacket needs a wash)
This gives me a fresh top each day, and something to wear while I am washing that doesn’t get washed that week.
Given the weather is still cold I also need:
1 coat
1 beanie
1 scarf
1 pair of gloves
That’s 20 items just to get through a week without washing - and I haven’t included shoes yet.
As a minimum I want 2 pairs of shoes. It’s good for your feet to change your shoes daily, and if one pair gets wet, then you need a second pair just in case.
2 shoes
That leaves 8 optional items for this capsule. I wanted to be practical in my choices, but also add variety.
I chose the following to ensure I have variety in the types of items I had previous identified :
1 extra warm top or jumper, just to make sure I included them. These are items that can be layered over other tops and under jackets for extra warmth.
1 Summery top, for the odd warm day.
1 Extra pair of shoes, to vary the style and suit more of the clothes.
1 extra jacket/cardigan - because I love jackets and it meant I could go for jackets of different thicknesses.
The next 3 items were chose for variety in how I could pull together items with different layers:
1 vest for layering under jackets on really cold days, or wearing instead of a jacket or on those days when it isn’t too cold
1 pair leggings. These are great for extra warmth under skirts, dresses and pants of extra warmth.
1 dress. If you love dresses, you might want to include more dresses. Remember that you can wear tops and skirts over dresses to add variety.
For my final item, was thinking about an extra bottom, but I probably don’t need one. I am a boots and jackets kind of girl and would prefer more of these if I have the flexibility.
And then I realised that I hadn’t included a raincoat. We tend to get lots of rain in Canberra in September. Oops. I had to add that as my final item. So that’s my 30 items!
I also decided to limit myself to 30 accessories, but more on that later.
The Inspiration
I wanted this set of set of clothes to feel like spring. To be uplifting, fresh feeling and envigorating.
Print Jacket
My September colour theme was inspired by this jacket which I had recently purchased.
It is not for everyone, but for me I love that it is bold, vibrant and reminds my of the riot of colour in Spring flowers.
It is also a massive change for the more neutral colours I had been wearing over Winter.
Inspired by this jacket I pulled together 30 items in orange, burgundy, and a yellow-green that is a subtle colour in the jacket.
The colours are very different from last year’s Summer Work Capsule, which was based on mustard, teal and green. This years collection of clothes isn’t a Wardrobe Capsule. Although most of the clothes can be mixed and matched, I haven’t made sure that every top/bottom/jacket combination will work. For example, I won’t were the leggings without a skirt or a long top over the top.
Apart from the yellow-green, there is nothing like last year’s colours in this Septembers 30 clothes.
I have already bought quite a few new things this year - some due to necessity such as when after moths got into some of my winter wardrobe - and a few because I found pieces I didn’t want to pass up. I didn’t want to have to purchase new clothes for the 30 item, and I have enough these colours in my wardrobe to pull together a decent collection without buying anything new.
The Reality
As I started to pull together the capsule, and thought about how I would combine things, I realised that I would really like another pair of shoes or two and another jacket. And maybe another top.
September is an in-between seasons month where it can be freezing cold in the morning and beautifully sunny, or it can be wet and miserable all day, or anything in between.
I decided to exclude my shoes from my 30 items of clothing and count them with my accessories.
This might be bending the rules a little, but they are my rules so I went for it.
This enabled me to add one more jacket and a couple of button up collared shirts.
I also decided that I needed a few camis to wear under some of my other tops - there are a couple that are see-through - I had thought of not counting these and just saying that they are underwear, but decided that if they were out I might be tempted to wear them as part of an outfit without a layer over the top if the weather got warm, so I decided I should count them. So I swapped in 3 camis for my scarf, gloves and beanie and moved those into my accessories pile.
For my accessories I decided on:
6 necklaces
6 sets of earrings
5 pairs of shoes
3 bags
2 belts
2 bracelets/bangles (1 to be made)
1 Fitbit
1 scarf
2 hats (1 to be made - if I don’t get it finished I will add in a cap)
1 pair gloves
1 pair sunglasses (I excluded my reading glasses from the tally as they are essential)
0 brooches
I am still playing with the final composition, but here it is shaping up:
The Outfits
I will be posting the outfits to facebook and instagram. You can follow me there (see links at the end of the page).
Join me
If you would like to get more use out of your clothes and stop buying clothes that you don’t wear, why not join my in limiting your wardrobe for September and then shopping your wardrobe for October. I would love you to join me.
If you think you don’t have time to pull together your September Wardrobe, you can start with one outfit and add another item each day until you reach your 30 items.
Each day in October I am going to shop my wardrobe of clothes that have been put away and swap out one item of clothing from my 30 items 30 days 30 outfits wardrobe, which is very similar, so maybe you would like to start with me then.
On my Instagram survey 80% of you said that your wardrobe wasn’t ready for Spring. If you would like a hand, I would love to help out. Here’s what my last client had to say:
“I knew I did the right thing coming to you to help me put a Spring Wardrobe Capsule together. It was so much easier than doing it on my own.”
