Capsule Wardrobe - The Hyperborean Spell

The best way to reduce your shopping, make your mornings easier and help the environment

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What is it?

A capsule wardrobe is the foundation of your personal style. It’s usually composed of classical and basic pieces but also the specifics that make your style. All these pieces should fit together.

The main objective is to have a contained amount of pieces that matched between them make you have a large quantity of outfits.

It’s a good way to make your choices easy and not let you be overwhelmed with closet chaos and lost clothes you don’t even remember you own, a way to simplify your closet and your life.

There is not One wardrobe that matches everyone

How many pieces should you have

Now, there isn’t a specific number of pieces defined. This is completely up to you. How much clothes do you need? Can you basically wear jeans, a t shirt and a sweater all year? Or are you more of a summer dress and cute winter skirt kinda girl? Be comfortable with the amount you define for yourself. Even though the concept usually defends between 30 to 50 items. But some defend working out clothes and accessories aren’t part of these items, other include everything you wear. So go for what feels right for you without stressing on counting pieces.

Not everyone was cut out to be a minimalist and only need 2 pairs of pants and 3 tops the whole year. Some of us need a nit more, some are in the process of getting ride of our clothes and becoming more conscious about our choices. Wherever you are there is no wrong place. Be comfortable with your pieces. And remember you starting a capsule wardrobe is a good starting point 😉

What can’t I have

Well there is obviously no wrong choices, it is after all your wardrobe. Still the focus here is to have matching pieces, so you can create an exponential number of outfits with a reduced number of pieces of clothing. So If you really like that pattern top, you must keeps bottom pieces that match with it, but also match with your other tops. Same for jackets, shoes, accessories…you see the point. So basically you need to start being conscientious about your choices when you are buying clothes.

Do I throw away all my clothes??

Well yes! And no. Honestly there is no right answer to this.

My advice is start the process and then you decide if you want to keep all of what you already have (maybe you are already a minimalist whithout knowing it), if you take the chance to sell some of your old clothes and use the money to buy an item you miss or to put that money to better uses, if you feel like you own too much and someone else that doesnt have so much can make a better use of your items, so you donate them. Whatever you feel it’s right for you right now, that’s the right choice. Remember the capsule wardrobe can be a seasonal exercise, a yearly exercise, a “my clothes are getting to bad to be used” exercise. But to start I would advise to make it a seasonal exercise.

Basic Items

Again these are entirely your choice but to give you some help these are some of the items you may want to have.

Basic white t shirt – goes well with everything and can go from casual look when paired with some jeans to a sophisticated with a leather skirt and some high heel boots
Jeans – can anyone live without a pair of jeans. Mine are black, for example.
Black top – the style of this one needs to go with your style – a lacy or satin more sophisticated type, a basic cotton one, a exotic cut one, whatever floats your boat.
Black dress – ok this one may not be for everyone, but maybe use this item as a unique piece that maybe you can wear for a more specific situation like a fancy dinner, a job interview, a birthday. Analyse your style and have a piece that fits you in the “black dress” style. Just don’t forget it needs to match your jackets and shoes
Sweater or cardigan – you need something to make you warm
Jacket – also a must for all seasons. Here you need to decide if you can use the same jacket for all seasons (maybe layer up on other clothes if the winter in your area isn’t too harsh) or if you need a winter jacket, a rain jacket and a blazer or denim summer jacket.
Snickers – or whatever comfortable shoes your prefer
Boots – winter is coming
Flip flops or sandals – even if you don’t live in a warm country, you still need these for travel, or those 2 weeks of summer (yes Norway I’m talking to you)
Accessories – now here is an easy way for you to change your looks. Wheter its necklaces, rings, earrings or hair accessories.

Same skirt! You can go from office outfit, concert or night out and just casual drinks with friends

Colors

So we talked about having pieces that match. That is easier made with basic colors like black, white, beige, grey, brown and navy blue. But your style may be more creative, you may find these colors dull, and not even own much clothes like that. So find your most basic items in what you already wear daily. Then use them to build up your wardrobe. If your “basic colors” are instead green, orange and yellow, use them. As long as your pieces match each other and feel like they portrait you, you don’t need to be normal basic. If you own a more classic wardrobe then analyse the basic color pieces we mentioned and build up from there. After choosing the basics choose the specific more original pieces you own and love and match them.

How to do it

Let’s start

1. Analyse

Put all your clothes on your bed. Look at them, realize which ones you love, which you barely use, the ones you didn’t even remember you had. Do they fit you well? Do they remind you of a special occasion? Analyse how much time and money you spent acquiring all of these.

2. Piles

Sort out all your clothes and accessories in different piles

Love pile – you may not use them a lot but you love these pieces, they have a sentimental value or they look amazing on you
Use almost everyday – these may be the most basic pieces like jeans and plain t shirts and tops. But they will be the base of your capsule wardrobe
Maybe – guess we all have that pile of clothes we don’t use that much and we are not passionate about but that we still like too much to easily get rid of them
Never use/didn’t knew they existed – don’t think it needs more explanation
Ruined – clothes that aren’t in conditions for you or anyone to use

3. Choices, choices and more choices

Now comes the hard part. Getting ride of your stuff.

Let’s start with the easy stuff. The ruined clothes just put them in the trash. Done, over with.

Now the never use/didn’t knew they existed. You know you need to get ride of these also. I mean if you never use hem you don’t really need them. Let it go…

The hard choices – love and use everyday. If these piles aren’t huge maybe you can actually keep them all. But if you are like me and think you actually need ALL the clothes you own, then these piles are gonna be big.

If so you need to take a good look at these piles. Look at all the clothes and check if you really wan to use them often, if you would buy them again, if you look good in them. These questions may help you realize what you really want to keep. Also before discarding these, check what matches.

Pieces that don’t match – how much you love these? Are they worth you spending money to get stuff that match them? How much things you need to buy? Maybe you need to realize you need to get ride of them.

A good way for you to feel better about getting ride of these pieces is to sell them. Getting some compensation will make it easy and you may set a goal of money you want to get so you can afford something you need. Or put them on your savings

Jeans, the most amazing piece of clothing. From basic to fancy. Not forgetting you can always add more classic pieces at use them at the office

Accessories

Some people don’t count these as part of their capsule wardrobe. They feel like these shouldn’t be reduced. The truth is these may be key items for you not to feel like you are constantly looking similar. A completely different necklace makes it look like you are wearing a completely different outfit. So if you have already some of these, and you can fit them with the clothes you chosen for your capsule wardrobe, may advice is keep them. Use them when you feel like your clothes are boring, they need a touch up or you just want to feel cute. If with time you start noticing you end up using only a limited number of them, get ride of all the others. Ohh and don’t forget scarfs <3 and maybe some gloves and a hat eheh

What about seasons?

Like we talked before you may want to revisit your capsule wardrobe often. Some people do them every season. The truth is, after you get used to thinking about clothes this way you will realize more than 80% of your clothes are good for all seasons. So yeah, feel free to have a jacket for Summer and another for Winter. You can keep a box with items for other seasons. But remember, the idea is to be able to live with less, so keeping a closet with 20 items but then using 6 big boxes to store the rest of your clothes doesn’t really fit the mentality of this.

Why be a minimalist on your closet

How often you buy a piece of clothing you actually needed? How much money you end up spending on those amazing sales? Do you find some lost pieces of clothing in the back of your closet you completely forgot you owned?

I did all of these. Kept buying stuff I didn’t really needed just because they looked good on me. Though loads of times I ended up not using them because I had nothing to pair with them, or having to go buy more clothes to fit them. I loved going to sales (still kinda do, but end up trying loads of stuff and not buying any – sorry all the people that work at the H&M close to me) and would buy 10 items for 50€ only…I know 50€ is a lot of money for stuff you don’t need…and sales now happen at least 4 times a year. Did those pieces made me happy? Yeah for a little while… But was I happy I scored an amazing deal on a super expensive jacket? Off course. Nonetheless that easily faded when I ended up only wearing it a couple of times because it only matched very specific items. In the end, clothes don’t make you happy, they don’t define you, and you don’t need to own Zara to have choices on what to wear. Less is more. Less in your head to worry, more in your wallet, less space in your wardrobe, more choices and more time for what you love.

Wanna have more ideas about Capsule wardrobes check some of these ladies examples