By Ruby Caballero-Roff, Senior Agony Aunt
The fashion industry is fast growing and ever changing which means that the expenses soon stack up when you’re trying to fit in with the latest trends. The capsule wardrobe is the ideal solution to the whirlwind of changing trends, giving you the ability to create more outfits with less pieces.
The first step is to take a look at what is already hidden in your wardrobe. Everyone will start with different basic items depending on what you wear most often, and you absolutely do not need to throw everything out and start from scratch! Organise your clothing to see what you are missing and identify whether your style includes more casual-wear pieces or bold, dressy garments.
Start to think about what colours you wear the most: are you into bright, vibrant shades? Or a more subtle neutral tone? If you’re struggling to decide then use the basic base colours of either white, black, navy, or brown. It is also helpful to understand what skin tone you have, either warm or cool, as that will help unlock your correct colour palette for flattering clothing. Once you have decided on the base colour and identified what clothing items you are missing you can purchase those staple pieces. For example, if you have a distinct wardrobe full of bright, bold garments but noticeably lack T-shirts then it is a great idea to purchase some in those base colours. The basic clothing can then be paired with your eccentric items to dress the outfit down, enabling you to get the most wear out of your clothes. As a side note, it may also be helpful to discover the best colour of accessories to accentuate your features and your outfit! For example, cool skin tones tend to go well with silver jewellery whereas warmer skin tones are best suited to gold, this is definitely worth considering in order to help kick your outfit up a notch.
Tuning the capsule wardrobe to fit in with your personal style is essential for expressing your individuality so do not feel as if you have to stray from what you love to wear. The idea of the capsule wardrobe is to give you a variety of interchangeable items that you need to amplify your current style and give you the chance to wear your favourite pieces timelessly. This concept fits with each individual’s own sense of fashion, if you are someone who naturally acquires more clothing that goes with the maximalist style but find yourself lacking everyday streetwear then the capsule wardrobe will enable you to dress down your noisy pieces to give them a quieter, more casual tone. This means that your favourite ‘special occasion outfits’ no longer need to be saved for a special occasion. In the celebrity sense, even the Princess of Wales has been famously praised for re-wearing some of her most elegant outfits to royal events so, if a royal can do it then so can you!
This is all great advice for those who have found their feet in terms of the way their express themselves through fashion. However, you, like many others may have not yet discovered your style and that is totally fine. One of the most important points to remember when dressing yourself is to understand your colour palette to really enhance your natural appearance. The first step to is to understand your skin undertones and the easiest way to break this down is to separate it into cool and warm undertones, although there are other types but for simplicity we’ll stick with the two. You may have a cool undertone if your veins appear green, and warm undertones are often associated with blue or purple veins. A person with cool undertones typically best suits silver jewellery and pastel coloured clothing, while someone with warm undertones looks great in gold jewellery and slightly more vivid colours such as red, blue, and green. These are just the initial stepping stones and once you become more confident in your approach to the way you dress you will naturally reach towards more flattering colours, clothing styles, and accessories but for now, do not be afraid to experiment.
The timeless wardrobe has many other benefits, for example, sustainability. It naturally encourages the act of re-wearing outfits and pieces instead of buying into fast fashion and placing large online orders, reaffirming the notion that a well-stocked wardrobe does not mean having a surplus of clothing. Not only will you have a cleaner conscience but a happier wallet too! Knowing you have ample clothing at home will undoubtedly have you reassuring yourself that no, you do not in fact need those ridiculously expensive shoes you have just seen in the shop window on your way home from work – even if it is payday.
Image: Billy Jo Catbagan via Unsplash