Personal Utopia - How to Make a Capsule Wardrobe

Apartment life might mean smaller spaces, but the upside is cutting down on items you don’t need in your home, saving you time, energy and money. In 2017, this more efficient and minimalistic lifestyle is all the rage, right? That’s why the capsule wardrobe, coined by Susie Faux, is the perfect way for apartment dwellers to organize their closets. The bonus being more space in your home and more money in your bank account.

So what exactly is a capsule wardrobe?

A capsule wardrobe is a wardrobe consisting of about 30-40 items of clothing and footwear that you can wear for at least three months (a whole season) or up to a year. The idea is to get quality items that last, which in turn will help you cut down on impulse shopping and purchases. The end result is that you’ve created a wardrobe where you can easily mix and match pieces.

Depending on your budget, you can create a capsule wardrobe for each season, half of the year or if you live in a warm climate, one wardrobe for the entire year.

How to Create a Capsule Wardrobe

1. The first step you’ll wan to do is clean out your closet. It’s time to get tough. Toss anything you haven’t worn in the past 3 to 6 months. Don’t be shy! If there’s something that you can’t bear to give away, but don’t wear it that often, put it aside in a pile that you’ll come back to later.
2. Look at what’s left in the closet. Do you see a theme? Do you see your style emerging? If you know exactly what your style is, good for you. For most of us, it will take some creativity and thinking about what direction to take our capsule wardrobe. Think about your lifestyle. Do you prefer to get dressed up or more casual clothing? Do you like basics that you can dress up when you need to or are you more of the fashionista type? There’s no right or wrong answer, it’s just finding the type of style that you tend to come back to over and over again.
3. Now it’s time to organize the items you are keeping. Organize by type of clothing: tops, bottoms, outerwear, dresses and shoes. Count how many items you have in each category.
4. Divide and conquer. To make it easy, we’ll stick to 35 items for your capsule wardrobe. We have 5 different categories of clothing so you can either divide 35 by 5 to have 7 items in each category or you will need to figure out what you tend to wear most. If you rarely wear dresses, then there’s no point in having 7 dresses to choose from in your wardrobe. Maybe just have 2 to 3 dresses and then put the remaining 4 spots towards a category you tend to wear more like tops and bottoms.
5. Do you need more items to complete your capsule wardrobe? Depending on how many clothes you had left in your closet after tossing old pieces, you may already have your capsule wardrobe complete, or you may need to buy some pieces to fill it out. It’s also best to check the quality of the pieces you’re deciding to keep. Are they still good quality? Will they last you another 3 months to a year? You can always replace items later on, but don’t think you need to keep an item that has a lot of wear and tear just to save money…which brings us to our next step.
6. Buy high quality items that will last. If you do need to purchase additional pieces, it’s best to buy pieces that you will wear over and over again, instead of trendy pieces that you’ll only wear once or twice. It’s also best to buy high quality pieces that you can keep in good condition for years. You may spend a bit more money in the beginning of creating your capsule wardrobe, but in the long run, you’ll be saving money by not buying cheap items that fall apart quickly.
7. Lastly, take one last look at the pile of items that you want to hold on to, but don’t wear often. Be honest with yourself, do you really see yourself wearing those items again? Or, are you holding on to them for other reasons, whatever they may be? Either way, pack them away in a box and put them in the back of your closet. If you completely forget about them, it may be a sign to toss them. Remember, the idea is to keep only items you use on a regular basis.

The result: After you’ve donated your old clothing, organized your closet and have filled out your capsule wardrobe, you may find you have more space and more to wear! The perfect combo for any apartment dweller.