Saara’s Vacation Capsule Closet
Closet Minimal Co-Founder’s Trial Run of a Capsule Closet.
I’m all about traveling light and avoiding checked baggage if possible. My week-and-a-half long visit with my family for the holidays was no different, and possibly even more challenging as we were traveling with a one year old. I knew we’d be doing laundry often, so I went super minimal: three tops, one travel shirt, one pajama t-shirt, four camisoles (aka: undershirts), one pair of jeans, and one pair of thermal leggings (also used as pajamas).
Basically I picked out three of my favorite tops that I’d feel comfortable wearing any day of the week. From a lazy day hanging out at my brother’s house, to feeling sufficiently dressed up for Christmas dinner. They also happen to be shirts I have in heavy rotation for wearing to work.
(My travel shirt is a lightweight long sleeve wool shirt that I wear layered with a cami when camping and traveling. It’s something that I’d wear on the weekends, but not to work.)
Vacation Capsule Closet: 👍 Would Do Minimal Again
My vacation wardrobe worked out great for me, and I even received compliments from my sister-in-law about how I looked so stylish everyday. No one cared that I wore the same shirt two or three times during the trip. I’m sure no one would have even noticed if I didn’t mention my packing strategy. I felt good about what I wore everyday, and all I had to worry about was doing the laundry, not picking out something to wear.
Real Life Closet: 👎 Still a Mess
Why is my real life closet not a capsule closet yet? My primary excuse is that I only do my laundry about once a week, so while I have my favorite tops in heavy rotation, I don’t have enough of them to capsulize my closet. That means there are still mornings when I look at all the shirts hanging in my closet and still think “ugh, I have nothing to wear” because my go-to defaults are in the laundry bin.
Clothes that don’t fit anymore or I just don’t like as much as I thought I would are easy to remove from my closet and put in the donation pile. It’s the “maybe” clothes that are the trouble. The clothes that maybe look good so I leave them in the closet, because maybe I will look in the mirror and feel good that morning when I’m out of the clothes I prefer to wear.
And then there are clothes that are former favorites, so I still like them, I just don’t feel that they’re right to wear at work any more. Those shirts take up space in the closet giving the illusion that I have plenty of options to chose from, when really I don’t.
As for my current favorite shirts, I have no idea how to find more in the style I like. Of the ones in my vacation capsule, two are from Stitch Fix, so I can’t order more directly from the brand, and the last one is no longer being produced. Maybe I’ll just have to design and manufacture a version of my go-to shirt, a women’s henley with the 3/4 length roll up sleeves (Someday, after we succeed with our first collection of basics. Read more about how we’re just getting started with Closet Minimal).
Capsule Closet Stories 👇
Do you have success or failure stories to share about your capsule closet attempts? What have you learned that you want to share? How did you deal with your maybe’s in your closet? How do you find more tops in a style you want to replicate in your closet?
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