Dress with Less — A Capsule Wardrobe Experiment for a Mindful 2019
In case you haven’t given up on New Years resolutions completely, now is the time to strive for a new and improved self again! The gyms are packed (at least until February) and many people start the new year with a detox month, avoiding alcohol, sweets, meat or whatever they think will kill them first. It feels like everyone tries to live a healthier life — and I am no exception. This year however, I would like to emphasize mental well-being — or to use a more fashionable term: mindfulness.
There are many ways to work towards a more mindful lifestyle and besides meditation, the strongest driver for me so far has been minimalism.
I have been following the movement for some time now (probably since around 2014) and have become a strong believer in how decluttering your life can help to focus on the activities and people you love most. One thing that comes up frequently and I always wanted to try, is a capsule wardrobe. In a nutshell, this means to have a limited set of basic clothes that you can use everyday.
The capsule wardrobe (or some variation of it) has been popularized by all kinds of celebrities. From technology visionaries like Steve Jobs and Marc Zuckerberg to famous actors like Keanu Reeves and Angelina Jolie. Even fashion legends like Karl Lagerfeld seem to stick to their favorite outfit (or at least a version of it).
Many articles have been written about the benefits of a capsule wardrobe, sometimes providing guidance on key pieces, but oftentimes missing out on proven practical advice. Something I would love to change now.
The last three weeks I have been going Marie Kondo on all my clothes and came up with a system for varying outfits with a minimal set of pieces. The goal was to be able to dress smart casual for work as well as for leisure time with classic key pieces and room for a personal note.
Of course, I was not buying everything new, but instead singled out the pieces from my existing wardrobe and bought only those things that were missing for my initial set.
Starting today, I invite you to join me on this journey. Learn with me what works and what doesn’t, implement changes to your own wardrobe and keep the thought process of dressing well simple.
A capsule wardrobe will make many aspects of your daily life easier and cheaper but most importantly, it will free your mind and make room for more important things.
My Capsule Wardrobe
First, I asked myself what my wardrobe really needs to accomplish under normal circumstances and collected a few basic requirements:
- I need to wear something seven days a week (duh!), including five working days.
- The style should be between casual and smart casual.
- I don’t want to wear the same outfit every day, but…
- …everything should match easily to reduce the time needed to select an outfit.
- Occasionally I need to be able to dress up a bit.
- Ideally, the clothes should work for four seasons by layering them.
- There should be enough pieces to have something to wear during laundry days.
I selected these 35 key pieces to start with:
Note: I only cover the basic items here for now, leaving out clothes for sports, special items (like gloves or scarfs), as well as a suit and tie. And yes, I counted a pair of socks (as well as shoes for that matter) as only one item.
Piece by Piece
7 boxer briefs: This probably goes without saying, but there is one brief per day. I also sleep in briefs and t-shirt, so they even serve a double purpose.
7 pairs of socks: Same thing for socks. A fresh pair for each day of the week. Currently there are three pairs of warm wool socks in the set, as it is winter. By pulling them over a pair of the thinner socks, you can use them multiple times. I will probably exchange them with some sneaker socks in summer.
2 pairs of pants: A black and a grey one. Both are jeans, while the black one looks less casual and works great with a shirt for more formal occasions.
2 pairs of shorts: The equivalent for summer, to cater for the four seasons.
5 crew neck t-shirts: They work well solo for casual outfits, as well as a base layer for shirts. I selected unicolor shirts, without any larger prints. This increases compatibility and — in case this is important to you — makes the t-shirts less memorizable. This is helpful if you don’t want to make it too easy for people to tell you are wearing the same pieces each week.
2 polo shirts: While looking a tad smarter than t-shirts when worn solo, they also make a great add-on for jumpers, as the collar sticks out.
2 shirts: For more formal occasions, also good for layering on colder days. If you need more formal clothes on a regular basis, you might need to add two or three shirts (and maybe reduce the number of jumpers or the hooded zipper jacket).
1 hooded zipper jacket: I guess you don’t really need a hoodie, but since it is my go-to travel piece, I included it in the set. It is also great for variations when worn with an open zipper, displaying the shirt color.
2 crew neck jumpers: For any occasion. One is light grey, the other one anthrazit with very subtle alternating stripes.
1 turtleneck jumper: Great alternative for the crew neck jumper on colder days. Also creates quite a different look.
1 down/synthetic down jacket (mid layer): Either wear it underneath the regular jacket when it is really cold or use it as an additional alternative for the crew neck jumpers/ turtleneck. As mine has a bright color, it also adds a great accent in combination with the standard jacket.
1 down/ synthetic down jacket (outer layer): This is the standard jacket. It’s black, comfortable, insulates great in cold and heat — it’s one of my most versatile and favorite pieces.
2 pairs of Shoes: For me, these are two pairs of sneakers. A black pair and a greyish one. If you need to dress up, you might want to consider a pair of black Oxfords.
About the Color Scheme/ 4 Shades of Grey and a Color
For maximum compatibility, it is important for the key pieces to be in a similar color range. To achieve this, I exclusively picked black and white, a light grey and a darker anthrazit. While earthy colors would work as well, combining them might become more challenging in addition to the question what works best with your skin tone. Thanks to the neutral nature of the grey scale, practically any other single color works with it, giving the opportunity to add a few pieces in your favorite color for a more personal touch (in my case it is a jacket in a color Nike dubbed “Volt”).
Selecting an Outfit
With the color scheme of the capsule wardrobe, pretty much everything works together in any combination. That being said, you could just pick anything and throw it on.
When mixing in a piece in a special color, using only one additional color is key. Also avoid multiple colored pieces: Even if all of them have the same color, they will differ in fine nuances.
Laundry Day
I haven’t figured out this one completely yet. As there are not so many pieces overall any more, they might fit into the washing machine altogether. In this case doing all the laundry on one day of the week would make sense, but raises a problem: what would I wear during the washing/drying time of the clothes? As I don’t own a dryer, I will try to put the clothes horse closer to the radiator and wear my sweatsuit during that time for now. Let’s see how this works out.
What’s next?
Having put together the key pieces for my capsule wardrobe, I am quite excited to try the system out now.
If you enjoyed reading this article and you are eager to know how the capsule wardrobe works out for me, you would like to read some additional thoughts that went into the system, see a rotation scheme and some of the actual outfits, follow me here on Medium.
Also: Let me know if you use a capsule wardrobe yourself, what it looks like or in which other ways you practice minimalism!
Update: It’s one year later now and I finished the follow up article:
