The Battle Against Stuff (a.k.a. Why I Made a Capsule Wardrobe)

It’s no secret that most of us have too much stuff. In fact, around here, if we aren’t constantly battling AGAINST accumulating stuff, then we WILL have too much stuff. Most of us know that all this stuff doesn’t lead to contentment or joy AND it makes our lives more complicated.

I don’t want complicated!

I want simple!

So, today I’m going to tell you how I’m fighting the CLOTHES battle!

We gotta start somewhere right? And if we are honest, it’s a good place to start because most of us have too many clothes.

But first of all, let me just say that I haven’t been doing so great the last few years…ahem (three decades) at the whole clothes thing. While some people are called Fashionistas, I think I’m more of a FashioNOsta! See definition below…

Okay yeah, I just made that up. But seriously, I just can. not. get. over. that The Gap is selling culottes! What in the world? Okay moving on, no, I don’t wear culottes, BUT I do struggle with clothes (or at least I did, way more than I do now!). While my two older sisters have always dressed super cute, I am the baby of the family, who loves sports, and pretty much grew up wearing soccer shorts and t-shirts that were way too big for me.

However, I am now 32 years old and officially an adult. I’m not even considered a “young” adult anymore. So I figured it was about time I started trying to get some of these everyday life things together.

Not helping the clothes situation, is the fact that I’ve had four kids in the last 5.5 years. …and every pregnancy I fly straight past that “recommended 25-35lb weight gain” like it ain’t no thing. So needless to say, I have lots of different sizes of clothes for all the transitions up and down.

AND, I also keep clothes around for waaay too long. Soccer shorts from 4th grade? Got em!

So, basically even though I had a TON of clothes in my closet, I didn’t like most of them or they didn’t fit! Then this last spring, I heard the idea of a capsule wardrobe.

“What is that?” you ask. “Am I burying my clothes in the backyard like a time capsule?”

Close, but no. Okay not close at all.

According to “Unfancy” (which is my favorite site on this subject) a capsule wardrobe is defined as,

“A mini-wardrobe made up of really versatile pieces that you totally Love to wear.”

I thought, “I need that!”

So after I had my baby in March, I wanted to give it a try. I decided to skip a summer wardrobe capsule because, well…I just had a baby.

But fall…I LOVE fall! …and I love fall clothes! And fall has always been my best season for clothes because my birthday is in October, so my super cute sisters and mom, buy me super cute birthday clothes!

I knew I already had some fall clothes I loved…and thought by the time my baby was 7 months, if I worked at it, I could fit into many of the clothes I really liked.

After reading A LOT about all this, I decided I wasn’t going to replicate one exact way to do it. I just needed to do what would work best for me (and maybe you!). Many sites gave magic numbers for the exact number of articles of clothing for a capsule wardrobe. Just to give you an idea, popular numbers are 33 or 37 items, which INCLUDE; tops, bottoms, dresses, jackets, and shoes. It generally DOES NOT INCLUDE; sleepware, exercise clothes, scarves, jewelry, purses, and clothes that you would paint in or work in the garden, etc.

Although, I found having a number helpful, again, I had no reason to be legalistic about it. I just liked the idea of less clothes, that all went together, that I loved!

To get started, I first had to tackle my closet. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Turns out, I actually did know the clothes that I really really loved! I picked out all my favs and laid them on the bed. Then I quickly saw which colors I tend towards. The two neutral colors that I had a lot of, were gray and navy. Then two accent colors I had a lot of were maroon/plum and mustard yellow.

Then I went on Pinterest, searched those colors and found a bunch of outfits I loved. …and even better, a ton of outfits from similar clothes that I already owned! I also got ideas for a few new things that, if added, would be major staples and go with nearly everything else.

Since I started back in early summer, I had plenty of time to go to thrift stores to pick some things up, watch for sales, and sell some of the stuff I didn’t like or didn’t fit to help pay for the few new things!

Check out this site which is all about recycling clothes… ThredUP  (I haven’t personally tried it yet but I have friends that have). Please DON’T throw clothes away that you aren’t using in your capsule. Either give them to someone you know that might need them, host a clothes swap, take them to the Salvation Army, or sell them!

Okay, back to the capsule wardrobe. It was a pretty big deal when I was going to add something into the capsule, so I always asked myself these four questions to vet what would make it in.

Asking these questions kept A LOT of clothes out of my closet.

By the time fall rolled around, I ended up with 39 articles of clothing. 20 shirts, 7 pants, 2 dresses, 6 shoes (two boots, three flats, one sandal) 3 jackets, and 1 vest.

And they are all things I LOVE and are CUTE and are COMFORTABLE, and besides one or two things (that I really loved but don’t match with a lot) it pretty much all MIXES AND MATCHES together!

And can I tell you how much easier it is to get dressed everyday?!

I want to show how FAR we can make our clothes go, once we learn how to get clothes that mix and match well together. So, I grabbed these 8 things from my capsule wardrobe. Here they are…

Then I added two scarves and a purse, and was QUICKLY able to put these 9 outfits together…and I’m sure I could have come up with more! Here are the outfits…

Not bad right? …and that is just about 1/5th of my wardrobe! Which Holy Moly makes me think I should cut it down in size again! But anyway, if Miss FashioNOsta can do it, You Can Do This People!!

For more help to get you started I’ve included some great links below.

Click HERE for more ideas on how to start a capsule wardrobe.

Click HERE for ideas to help build a wardrobe that can easily be mix and matched.

Also, one of my next posts will be about the app (insert: my friends and family rolling their eyes because I won’t stop talking about this app) that will change your life in regards to all this!

So stay tuned!

I hope this is helpful and feel free to ask me questions about any of this!

Sweet reader, tell me some ways that you have gone to battle against too much stuff? I’d love to hear more ideas!

(All Images were created at Snappa.io, with the exception of the wardrobe examples)