Hi, friends! Today I’m excited to share with you the second update in my January goals for the year. In case you missed it, the first update covered my January budget—what it was, how I did, and all the interesting little lessons I learned along the way. If you remember from my original post on my January goals, I wanted to focus on limiting my impulse purchases by implementing two new habits.
Habit 1: Stick to a monthly budget.
Habit 2: Practice closet contentment with a monthly capsule wardrobe.
If you couldn’t guess from the title, today’s post is all about my January Capsule Wardrobe—the inspiration for it, the 27 pieces that were in it, how many times I wore each piece, and overall takeaways from this monthly closet experiment. So let’s get right into it, shall we?
For this month’s capsule wardrobe, I had 27 different pieces I rotated between for my daily looks—12 tops/sweaters, 5 bottoms, 6 shoes, and 4 outerwear/cardigans. Typical “capsule wardrobes” use 30-40 pieces over the course of a season (approx. three months), but I wanted the flexibility of adding in fun “new” pieces from my existing wardrobe each month to change things up and give myself some creative freedom from getting too bored with only 30 pieces.
Since this was my first official try at a capsule wardrobe and I wanted the experience to be as easy as possible to implement (it’s supposed to make my life easier, not harder, after all), I decided to leave my entire current fall/winter wardrobe in my closet and just clear off a single rack to use as my monthly capsule wardrobe area. This way, it didn’t require me to pack up all my stuff and find a place to store it, nor did it require me to go through everything and permanently get rid of a bunch of things I might want to wear again next year.
Essentially I spent one afternoon clearing off a rack and started picking out things from my wardrobe that I was drawn to. I ended up putting probably 40 items in the area designated for my capsule wardrobe and left all my fall/winter shoes out as options. Over the course of the month, I found myself reaching for the same things over and over again and about two-thirds of the way through the month, I realized that I had only used 27 items total. So I decided to limit the rest of the month to those 27 pieces, which ended up not being hard at all, surprisingly! So this ended up being a super simple way to start my capsule wardrobe journey with minimal effort on my part!
Additionally, keeping the remainder of my “unused” wardrobe in my closet where I could easily see and access it enabled me to keep an eye on pieces I might want to add/swap into my capsule wardrobe in the following months. It’s a great way to “shop my own closet” and makes it feel like I have plenty of “new” things to wear in the coming months. And in fact, this was the primary goal of doing a monthly capsule wardrobe experiment this year—to learn to be content with the things I already have. Already, I would consider it a success and I’m excited to continue the process in the coming months.
First, I’m going to talk about the thoughts I considered when putting my capsule wardrobe together–the color inspiration, what the weather looked like on a day-to-day basis, and my specific lifestyle needs throughout the month. And then I’ll get into the specifics of the individual pieces I chose .
Color Inspiration
I tend to be very inspired by specific color palettes during each season. While fall tends to be dominated with earthy tones such as sienna browns, red-orange rusts, and deep emerald greens (my Fall 10×10 Challenge was indicative of that!), I usually opt for more neutrals such as black, gray, and whites in the winter. However, as you will be able to see from my January picks below, this year I’ve been inspired to incorporate more of those fall earthy tones into my outfits all the way through winter.
Weather
I live in Boulder, Colorado where the weather can be sunny and 60 degrees one day and then snowing and below 0 the next. So my wardrobe needed to be able to accommodate for these different scenarios on a daily basis (read: lots of layers).
Lifestyle
I’m an engineering PhD student, so my daily outfits are casual but I still like to feel put together. These outfits also include my weekend lounge wear too. As a note, there were a few days I went skiing and a couple I just stayed in my pj’s all day (oops). So on the days I didn’t wear normal clothes, I just didn’t record any clothing counts for those days. And honestly, those days were more of the exception than the norm. However, if I styled leggings for a day’s outfit (like on the weekend or a day of work at home), I definitely recorded those outfits. I also didn’t include true cold weather coats in my “outerwear” category and let those flow into and out of my wardrobe as necessary. Those heavier weather-driven items come off as soon as I go indoors. But anything like a light jacket, vest or cardigan that was worn with the outfit throughout the day was included.
January Capsule Wardrobe + Wear Counts
Ok, so here are the 27 pieces I wore in the month of January. In the following lists, I have ordered each category of clothing by number of wears—largest to smallest.
—Tops + Sweaters (12)
01 | Black Cashmere Sweater (Everlane, size M) – wear count: 3
02 | Burnt Orange Turtleneck (J. Crew, size S) – wear count: 3
03 | Maroon Turtleneck (J. Crew, size M) – wear count: 3
04 | White + Black Stripe Long Sleeve Tee (Target, size M) – wear count: 3
05 | Black Marled Long Sleeve Tee (Target, size M) – wear count: 2
06 | Black + Gray Stripe Long Sleeve Tee (Target, size M) – wear count: 2
07 | White Turtleneck Sweater (Madewell, size S) – wear count: 2
08 | Navy Turtleneck (J. Crew, size S) – wear count: 2
09 | Hunter Green Turtleneck (J. Crew, size S) – wear count: 2
10 | Black Turtleneck (J. Crew, size S) – wear count: 1
11 | Cream Cashmere Sweater (Everlane, size M) – wear count: 1
12 | Gray Sweater Tee (Express, size S) – wear count: 1
—Bottoms (5)
01 | Dark Boyfriend Jeans (7 for All Mankind, size 28) – wear count: 11
02 | Black Align 7/8 Leggings (Lululemon, size 6) – wear count: 5
03 | Black Crop Leggings (Target, size S) – wear count: 4
04 | Sienna Wide Leg Crop Pants (Madewell, size 27) – wear count: 2
05 | Burgundy Wide Leg Crop Pants (Madewell, size 27) – wear count: 2
—Shoes (6)
01 | Black Snow Boots (UGG, size 6) – wear count: 8
02 | Black Ankle Boots (Old Navy, size 7) – wear count: 6
03 | Purple Sneakers (Nike, size 7) – wear count: 4
04 | Brown Snow Boots (UGG, size 6.5) – wear count: 3
05 | Cognac Ankle Boots (Antonio Melani, size 6.5) – wear count: 2
06 | Leopard Loafers (Madewell, size 6.5) – wear count: 1
—Outerwear (4)
01 | Black Sweater/Cardigan (VETTA, size S) – wear count: 5
02 | Gray Sweater/Cardigan (VETTA, size S) – wear count: 4
03 | Red Furry Vest (Patagonia, size XS) – wear count: 3
04 | White Fur Cardigan (Express, Size OS) – wear count: 2
My Thoughts
Overall I was really happy with how my January Capsule Wardrobe went! I wore almost everything at least twice. And to no surprise, the items I thought were my favorites going into the month (my black snow boots, my 7fam dark boyfriend jeans, and turtlenecks in general) were the pieces I wore the most. I am also happy to report that cashmere sweaters (for better or worse…for my wallet) are my new favorite thing in the winter. They are a lightweight, more fitted yet still incredibly warm piece for winter. Does it get much better? Another piece I LOVED having this month? My VETTA capsule sweaters, which can be worn as crewneck sweaters, turtleneck sweaters, AND cardigans. Talk about a versatile wardrobe worker. I also like that these sweaters, made out of organic cotton, gave a “warmer” sweater weather option since cotton doesn’t keep you as warm as wool–perfect for those warmer yet still chilly days.
One thing that really surprised me was that I only used 27 pieces this month. That is crazy! And you know what else? I didn’t get bored with my closet! I know…I’m shocked! It really just goes to show that I can live on a lot less than I have been, that I have more than enough, and can be plenty happy with the looks I put together with what I already own. Yes! Capsule wardrobe experiment success! And in fact, if I’m being completely honest, I’ve been more happy with my outfits in the past month than I have probably all of last year. Yeah, how is that for a mind-blowing statement I thought I would never say?! And I didn’t need to buy a single new thing to feel this way! I totally get it when minimalists talk about removing the many excess to expose the smaller few that actually bring you joy. It really works.
Another interesting and unexpected effect of trying out the capsule wardrobe and keeping track of my wear counts, is using those wear counts in real-time to get a more even wear out of everything in my closet. For instance, when I was looking for a top to wear with my leggings the other day, I sorted my pieces by their wear count (in an Excel spreadsheet) and choose from the lowest worn tops that had a crew neck. Not only does this tool help me to evenly wear all the things in my wardrobe, it also gives me a concrete, quantitative look at how much I am actually wearing the items in my closet. So the next time I try to justify keeping something, I have a number to back that decision up and I’m not solely relying on my emotional attachment or vague recollection of how often I wore something. If the number is large, I know I have gotten lots of wear out of something. If the number is small (or worse I haven’t worn it at all in the past year!), then it might be time to pass the item along to a home it can get more use in.
And that’s it! Those are my major takeaways from my first month of doing a capsule wardrobe. Over the course of this next month, I will be sharing five of my favorite looks from my January Capsule Wardrobe. Looks I actually wore and loved in real life! This is a totally new direction I’m taking with style posts moving forward this year. In the past, I’ve mostly put together more “inspirational” style content (with the exception of course, of the 10×10 challenge posts, which I actually wore). But moving forward, I want this space to be a reflection of my authentic self and the new direction I’m taking in my wardrobe (and life)—and that starts by sharing outfits I *actually* wear. All this to say, I hope you are as excited as I am for this new direction on the blog!
Thanks so much for reading and I’ll see you next time with my first new style post of the year!
What about you? Have you tried out a capsule wardrobe before?
You might also like…My Favorite Books on Minimalism and The 100 Thing Challenge I Did Last Summer.
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