“Shopping is my cardio.” This quote describes me and many other college women so well because we absolutely love to shop. Clothes are the ultimate form of expressing yourself and your personality in the simplest way: by wearing it. I’ve built up quite a collection of pieces over the past six years of being a self-proclaimed shopaholic and I am not experiencing the downsides to having so many clothes.
For me, I usually shop at thrift stores and flea markets and I always head straight for the clearance section in normal stores first; I’ve been trained to find the best style deals. Because of this, I justify buying 5 sweaters for a dollar each and then end up with mountains of clothes while still feeling like I have nothing to wear. This is an age old dilemma that many women experience: staring into a bursting closet with absolutely nothing to wear. What I realized after reading many style articles and watching many YouTube videos was that I was looking at my clothes in the wrong way. If I saw a piece I liked and it was reasonably priced, I would get it without thinking of how I would actually wear it.
College dorm rooms are notorious for having small closet spaces, so for those who care to wear more than just sweatpants to class, choosing which clothes to bring to college is an important process. I narrowed down my mountain at home to a smaller mountain shoved into three suitcases and several packages to be sent to me a year and a half ago as a wide eyed freshman. Now that I have gone through one summer of storing my things and will soon have to send all of my things back home 2,000 miles away, I’ve come to realize that I brought way too many clothes with me to my dorm and I didn’t wear most of them as much as I should have.
Pc: http://www.homedit.com/7-tips-ideas-organize-closet/
I am attracted to unique pieces, mostly printed, and they have proven to be tricky to style in several different ways. What I realized that I was missing from my closet were the basics: solid colored shirts and sweaters that can be mixed and matched with different bottoms and outerwear and shoes. So I set out on a mission to transform my wardrobe so that it was smaller and easier to manage while making it easier for me to make outfits in the morning. This is where the capsule wardrobe method comes in.
From what I have read and watched, this method was the norm back in the 1930’s but has resurfaced lately amongst the fashion blogging community thanks to Caroline of the blog Un-Fancy. It’s an experiment in minimalism that is supposed to have many benefits to your life and style such as making it easier to dress yourself in the morning and keeping an organized and concise wardrobe. Basically, you choose a certain number of clothing pieces, anywhere from 30-50 but the number is completely flexible and can be more or less. These pieces are mostly basic pieces with a few more exciting pieces sprinkled throughout. This idea really appealed to me because I was looking for a way to severely downsize the amount of clothes I had with me in college, especially because I plan to study abroad soon and would be living out of a suitcase for four months. Without compromising my love of fashion, I’ve taken all of the tips that many minimalist bloggers and youtubers have suggested and am almost complete on my journey to creating a capsule wardrobe that I love and adore and would fit into a suitcase.
I was also introduced to an app that would be immensely helpful in tackling the daunting task of revamping my college wardrobe. The app, Stylebook, has helped me to see my entire closet in the palm of my hands. For a small $3.99 download price, you get the ability to completely categorize your entire wardrobe with ease. In addition to categorizing, there are features to create outfits much like the ones you see on Pinterest and to create packing lists for all your adventures as well as a calendar system to plan your outfits in advance and see how many times you wear your pieces. I downloaded the app back in the summer and have been using it to get more use out of the pieces that I currently have in my dorm. I also used it to create a list of the things that I was missing to create my dream capsule wardrobe and have been checking them off and adding them in one by one. There are other apps that serve similar functions for free, but I decided to invest the $4 because of all of the wonderful reviews this app had and I am not disappointed.
I am now in the stage along my journey to transition from my overpacked wardrobe to the small collection that I’ve curated for myself. Before winter break, I did an extreme clearout of my dorm closet and donated about 3 trash bags of clothes that I never wore in college. I then filled a suitcase and a half with clothes I still liked but wouldn’t wear to take back home over winter break. During spring break, I’ll do the same. By the time summer rolls around, I’ll hopefully have everything back in my Texas home and my capsule ready to fill my one suitcase to travel the world.
It’s a romantic notion, to have a small closet filled only with pieces you adore and to experience the ease of outfit planning every morning. I’ve already seen a difference in the way I dress since I started this journey and I hope to be completely content with my wardrobe by the time I reach my goal.
Pc: https://blog.bloglovin.com/blog/how-to-create-the-perfect-wardrobe-capsule