What is a Capsule Wardrobe?

Introduction

Ever stood before your wardrobe thinking to yourself: ‘I have nothing to wear!’. If so, you are not alone. We have all spent many mornings staring at our overfilled closets, feeling we don’t have the right outfit for the occasion.

Despite the above, our closets have grown exponentially over the past decades. In the 1940s, a middle-class woman-owned, on average, between 30 and 40 pieces of clothing, including underwear and socks. According to Gold Zipper, people typically own around 148 pieces and, in the UK, as many as 172.

The SUN reported in 2017 that the average Brit wears as few as five outfits on repeat. In her book, You Are What You Wear, Dr Jennifer Baumgartner states something is in a similar vein. She states that most people wear 20% of their closet 80% of the time.

A few questions come to mind when looking at the preceding paragraphs. First, why do we have so many clothes when we only wear a fraction? Why do we claim that we have nothing to wear? Is there an alternative to it all?

In the proceeding paragraphs, I will tackle these questions.

The state of our wardrobes

Anyone who has ever talked to an older person will hear stories about them wearing hand-me-downs or mending socks. People made dresses, suits and other consumer items to last and repaired them when damaged.

This doesn’t happen today; many of our garments are made from flimsy material, not made to last. Heather Rogers, in her excellent book Gone Tomorrow. The Hidden Life of Garbage describes how companies realised they could deliberately increase profits by building obsolescence into their products and, through aggressive advertising, make people constantly desire new products.

In the world of fashion, we call this trend fast fashion. Alex Crumbie explores this in a blog post from October 2021:

“Fast fashion is ‘fast’ in several senses: the changes in fashion are fast, the rate of production is fast; the customer’s decision to purchase is fast; delivery is fast, and garments are worn fast – usually only a few times before being discarded.”

The fast fashion trend explains why we now own more than four times the number of clothes that our parents or grandparents did.

With so many clothing items in our wardrobe, why do we feel we have nothing to wear? Two reasons. We are overwhelmed by the sheer choices of clothing in our closet, which leads us to feel decision fatigue:

Decision fatigue is when the mind becomes fatigued after a sustained period of decision making. Making decisions is a cognitively taxing process, and decision-making ability declines after long sequences of decisions.

For the other, we have too many individual items that we randomly bought in a sale that might look nice on their own but don’t coordinate well with any of our existing wardrobe pieces. So we either go and buy yet more clothing to go with the ‘misfits’, or we store the ‘misfits’ in our closet and forget about them.

What is the Capsule Wardrobe

With growing concern for our planet and our health, it is no wonder that a sizable minority are looking at alternatives to fast fashion:

In a world of fast fashion and trends that come and go even faster, it’s easy to accumulate too many clothes that don’t communicate our individual style, and we feel guilty getting rid of them.

The capsule wardrobe is a concept that many people have turned to in the last few years. You only need to google it to see its rising popularity on blogs and in YouTube videos.

Before drafting this article, I assumed that the capsule wardrobe was a 21^st-century invention. The term originates in 1940s America and denotes a small collection of garments harmonising in colour and line and designed to be worn together.

Susie Faux, the owner of the London boutique Wardrobe, revived the term in the 1970s. She stated that a capsule wardrobe consists of a number of timeless wardrobe staples supplemented by a few fashionable pieces.

The capsule wardrobe really took off in 1985 when American designer Donna Karan released an influential capsule collection of seven interchangeable work-wear pieces.

Courtney Carver of Be More with Less has created a project called Project 33. Here she gets people to wear only thirty-three different clothing items, including shoes and accessories, for three months. This is to get people to appreciate the benefit of owning less clothing.

Some people get very hung up about the number of items they own or feel they should own. But a capsule wardrobe is not about an arbitrary number.

It is all about finding your unique style and wearing only clothes that suit your lifestyle and body shape. It should consist overwhelmingly of high-quality neutral stables that you can wear for many years.

Caroline Joy of Unfancy, an early adopter of the capsule wardrobe, describes it like this:

“[A capsule wardrobe is] a practice of editing your wardrobe down to your favourite clothes (clothes that fit your lifestyle + body right now), remixing them regularly, and shopping less often and more intentionally.”

Rachel Zoe, in her blog entitled How To Build A Capsule Wardrobe That Still Looks Like You In 6 Easy Steps outlines six easy steps to build a capsule wardrobe:

1. Figure Out Your Signature Style

2. Start with The Basics

3. Choose A Colour Palette – And Stick to It

4. Shop Your Closet

5. Incorporate Your Classic Style Twists

6. Fill in The Rest

Conclusion

So, if you wish to have less clutter in your closet, have fewer decisions to make when dressing and do your bit for the planet, think about adopting a capsule wardrobe.

To get further ideas on how to get organised and more productive, check out my other posts here.

trabantbettina

Bettina Anna Trabant, Founder of Life Organised, your professional organising and decluttering service in East London. Eco-conscious minimalist and avid tea drinker,