Hi friends! I’ve been thinking more and more about my wardrobe lately. I want clothing that fits me well and makes me feel my best. I’ve been having problems losing weight since surgery last year and health problems in general (no, the gallbladder removal wasn’t a cure all) so in order to feel my best I’m trying really hard to make my wardrobe the best it can be, because I'm really tired of having to trying to put on multiple items in the mornngs just to have them not fit. It is very frustrating! In the last month I’ve been taking some steps to start a capsule wardrobe.
There are many different techniques for creating a capsule wardrobe, but Caroline’s approach on the Unfancy blog seemed like the best/most attainable approach for my lifestyle. To be honest, I wasn't going to blog this but during my research I didn't see many plus size capsules and those that I did see weren't my style at all, so here I am blogging about it just in case someone like me is searching for inspiration. I'm not putting links to anything because ain't nobody got time for that so use these outfits as pure inspiration and an overview of my style.
The first thing I had to do was go through the insane amount of clothing I own and be very judicious about what I wanted to keep. I did this knowing that I was planning on only have 30ish items out per season -- I only kept things that fit but were for other seasons and a few things that don’t fit right now, but I’m hoping will fit in the next year. I decided my current capsule will be in my guest room closet. It’s the smallest closet we own and the closest to my bathroom so it’s definitely the easiest to use when I get ready each morning. My big closet is in my craft room (which to be honest is sometimes a hazard to walk through) so I’ve decided that’s where I’ll store the clothing not currently in my capsule. This will be easier than going through storage boxes every few months. Since I have the space I might as well utilize it this way and if I absolutely have to have something not in my capsule, it will be easy to find.
When building my capsule, I found Caroline’s Capsule Wardrobe Planner to be very beneficial. It helped me really think about my lifestyle needs and style preferences and build my wardrobe around that. While I really love cutesy styles and dresses, my lifestyle really doesn’t lend itself to dresses as much anymore and I really need more classic style with cutesy pops. As a frequent ‘like it - buy it - then not wear it’ shopper, really thinking about my needs vs. syle made me think hard about what I buy before I buy it.
I decided to just try this thing out for the month of March with clothes I already had and if I liked it I would make a more thoughtful spring capsule for April and May. Here are my items for March:
This is definitely thrown together but it worked! I didn't have any bad feelings about my clothing or self all month and I actually didn't repeat any outfit exactly which wasn't a goal but was a fun surprise (this definitely won't happen during the three month seasons). I also discovered the amount of laundry I had to do was significantly less, which is always a plus in my book. I also tried really hard to change as soon as I got home from work so I would be able to wear things a few times before washing them to extend the life of my clothing a little more.
Here are my March outfits just in case you want to see. I'll try to do these posts seasonally. So leave a comment if you want more info, links, etc. about the clothing I'm posting. I used stylebook for all these layouts. I'm not going to take photos of myself everyday. I'm fine with layouts like the ones below.
I've already worked on my April and May spring capsule and will show you that on the 1st. I've also been sewing more clothing so I plan on posting about that as well. You can see two items in the photos above: the sailor top and the cabin dress. I have three more items I hope to make during April and May. Do you blog about a capsule wardrobe or something similar? Post your link in the comments!
