Are Capsule Wardrobes Realistic?
That’s a great question, and one that we’ll explore in this article.
A Capsule Wardrobe or a Wardrobe Capsule is a collection of clothes that all work together. Every top goes with every bottom, and every top-bottom pair goes with every topper.
While some people use the terms interchangeably, I use the term Capsule Wardrobe to mean that everything in your wardrobe all works together. Is this realistic? I’m not sure, but it certainly isn’t something that I aspire to. I can’t imagine myself wanting to wearing my sports shorts with a formal top and heels, or a long formal dress with sneakers and an exercise hoody, or a scrappy summer dress with a winter coat, although it is possible to look good doing so.
I also like variety, so I can definitely say that a Capsule Wardrobe isn’t for me. However, when travelling or if you have very little wardrobe space you may want to try it.
On the other hand, you can have multiple Wardrobe Capsules in your wardrobe, and if we are being honest, a few odd pieces that don’t play nicely with other clothes that we own, but that we love or need anyway.
If you have ever been inspired to create a mix and match wardrobe capsule by Pinterest or after reading an article, you wouldn’t be alone if you gave up and thought that it wasn’t realistic for anything but the smallest capsule (say a pair of jeans and 2 T-shirts).
Those words ‘where every top goes with every bottom and every bottom goes with every topper’ are deceptively simple. But short of trying every top, bottom, and topper on, how do you find items that go together?
Outfit Formula. So with that teaser…
What is a Wardrobe Capsule?
As mentioned previously a Wardrobe Capsule is a collection of clothes that all work together. Every top goes with every bottom, and every top-bottom pair goes with every topper.
A Simple Wardrobe Capsule
If that sounds confusing, here is a simple example with just two bottoms and two tops. With 2 tops and 2 bottoms we get 2 x 2 or 4 outfits.
If you look at the diagram, each line contains a top and a bottom. Putting the top and bottom together from each row - blue top with yellow skirt, brown top with blue pants - we get one outfit for each top/row or 2 outfits. Now if we go down the page, we can see that each top also goes with the other pair of pants. The blue top can also go with the blue pants, and the brown top with a yellow skirt for another 2 outfits. 2 tops that can be worn with 2 bottoms gives us 2 x 2 or 4 outfits.
How Big Should a Wardrobe Capsule Be?
A Wardrobe Capsule should have at least 2 tops and 2 bottoms in it. This gives you 2 x 2 or 4 outfits, as shown above.
A Wardrobe Capsule can be as big as you like. But as each top has to go withis each bottom and each top-bottom pair has to go with each topper the larger you want your wardrobe capsule to be, the harder it is to construct.
I recommend 2-3 bottoms, 4 tops and 2 toppers to start with. It is small enough to be manageable and large enough to give variety, plus two capsules and one extra outfit, like a dress, gives you enough clothes to wear for a week without washing (assuming you wear the bottoms twice). This could be one work capsule and one weekend capsule with a couple of cross over items if that works for you.
Why Use Wardrobe Capsules?
A wardrobe capsule is great to give you multiple outfits with a minimum number of clothes. They are perfect for travelling. They are also perfect when you need to start a new wardrobe from scratch and don’t want to spent a lot of money - like when you start working, are pregnant, or when you move somewhere with a different climate.
Why are they so good? Well with a capsule wardrobe of just 3 bottoms, 4 tops and 2 toppers you get with 3 x 4 x 3 (2 toppers or no topper) or 36 outfit combinations - that’s a month’s worth of unique outfits. Plus if you wear bottoms after wearing them twice, tops after wearing ing the once, and toppers after wearing them a few times, you only need 2 wardrobe capsules to get you through a week without washing. This gives you a minimum of 2 months worth of unique outfits from only 18 items.
Purchasing up to 10 items to make 36 outfits is much cheaper than purchasing 36 separate outfits each made up of 2-3 items.
Now in practice, your 10 items might only make 30 outfits that you like to wear, but thinking about a wardrobe capsule without being hard and fast about the rules is still likely to rest in a more flexible wardrobe than buying individual outfits.
How Many Wardrobe Capsules Should I Have?
The answer is a not very enlightening, it depends.
Most wardrobes will have many capsules. They may be for different purposes - work, casual, date night, exercise; different seasons - summer, winter, wet, dry; different colours - navy, black, teal, orange; or different types of clothes - slacks, skirts, long boots, strappy sandals. Some wardrobes will also have stand alone items that aren’t part of a capsule - like a formal dress.
How many capsules you need will depend on your lifestyle, your climate and how much it varies throughout the year, and how often you want to wash.
It will also depend on how much variety you like and what you already have in your wardrobe. Say you are just starting work, then you might have a new work wardrobe capsule as well as a lot of clothes that you already had.
Should I Have A Wardrobe Capsule?
Wardrobe Capsules aren’t for everyone. Some people find them constraining. So should you consider a wardrobe capsule?
Do you have a large wardrobe but nothing to wear?
Do you have a small budget or wardrobe space?
Do you need a new wardrobe and want to start small?
Do you enjoy planning and organising?
Are you travelling and want to minimise your luggage?
Do you want to get maximum value from your purchases?
Do you have trouble putting outfits together?
Do you need a temporary wardrobe because you are living somewhere different for a while, are pregnant, or breast feeding and don’t want to have to get a lot of new clothes?
If you answered yes to any of these questions then you should consider a Wardrobe Capsule.
However, a Wardrobe Capsule might not be for you if:
You like variety in your outfits, particular if you like variety in your silhouettes.
You already have a lot of clothes and outfits that you are happy with.
You don’t like to plan, and don’t want to put the effort in to finding clothes that go together.
Putting together a wardrobe capsule requires more time and effort than purchasing individual outfits.
How to Create a Wardrobe Capsule
Next week I will show you my Spring-Summer Wardrobe Capsule. It’s quite a sophisticated Wardrobe Capsule, however for starting out I recommend the follow approach.
Pick an outfit formula, a recipe or silhouette. Not all toppers go with all bottoms, and by keeping to the same shape in garments makes it easier to mix and match them. In the example above I chose a simple outfit formula of pants and a regular length top.
Keep it small. You need at least 2 bottoms, 2 tops and ideally 1 topper, and I recommend no larger than 3 bottoms, 4 tops and 2 toppers for your first capsule. 2 toppers, 2 bottoms and 4 tops still has 24 many possibilities - 3 (2 toppers or no topper) x 2 bottoms x 4 tops. Two wardrobe capsules of this size is enough to get you through the week without washing if you wear your bottoms twice.
Pick a colour scheme. By that I don’t mean restricting yourself to only a few colours, just colours that go together. If you have a colour palette from a colour consultation, I recommend starting with that. Otherwise you can pick up colour palettes from the paint section of the hardware store or my searching pinterest. This is not strictly necessary, but will make sure your colours go together.
Using your best neutrals for at least one of you bottoms and toppers makes mixing and matching different colours easier. A black and white capsule is easy to do, but may not be your best colours. There are lots of other neutrals that you can choose - cream, beige, tan, ochre, rust, navy, grey, charcoal to name a few.
Choose where you want your prints. Unless you are experienced at mixing prints it is easier to choose to have prints in either your tops or toppers or bottoms and not two. If you do want to do both, stripes and spots are easier to match than abstracts and flowers.
Decide what sort of column of colour you want - inside or outside, either or neither. This makes choosing items to fit in your capsule harder, but can be more flattering. A wardrobe capsule with a colour of column and multiple colours in your bottoms means that not all outfits will create a column of colour, so you may want to have a column of value (darkness) so that you can have variety while achieving a similar effect.
Check your wardrobe to see what you have enough items in the outfit formula and colours you have chosen.
Consider a jeans, t-shirt, jacket capsule or similar if you want something easy to start with.
Wardrobe Edits
Wardrobe capsules can be created as as part of a Wardrobe Edit where I look at what you already own and find new combinations of clothes that will work for you. Click the link to find out more about Wardrobe Edits.
101 Series
This article is part of a series of articles of introductory articles. It you liked it, I would love to hear about whether you are inspired to try a wardrobe capsule. If you would like other ideas it, you might like to read more about the basics of colour and style.
