I’ve never done a wardrobe challenge before.

Although I have gotten rid of a lot of clothing over the past few years, I am intrigued by the idea of a capsule wardrobe, with a few pieces that I absolutely love, instead of a bunch of clothing that I feel ambivalent towards.

It seems like a natural progression on my journey to live a more intentional life with less stuff.

The 10×10 Capsule Wardrobe Challenge

I had read about the 10×10 wardrobe challenge a while back over at Un-Fancy.

The idea is simple: I would have to chose 10 items of clothing from my closet to wear over 10 days and I had to make 10 different outfits from these items. Tops, bottoms and shoes were included in the 10 items. It did not include accessories, activewear, undergarments or sleepwear.

I did have some reservations. Could be content with just 10 items to choose from? Could I make it through without reaching for something I hadn’t included?

Regardless of these reservations, I decided to go ahead with the challenge. So I selected my 10 items and started the challenge on March 30. Check out this post for a description of the items that I picked for the challenge and further information on why I chose to do the challenge, as well as why I picked the items that I did.

So for 10 days, I wore the same 10 items which I mixed up into 10 different outfits. I did choose to wear a warm grey wool sweater on day 8 of the challenge. It was cold outside and I just felt like I couldn’t stay warm. But I was able to use just the items that I had selected for the rest of the outfits.

The outfits I created

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

The lessons I learned from the wardrobe challenge

1. Having a smaller assortment of clothing to choose from is liberating.

It was nice to get up and to not have to go through a bunch of clothes to make an outfit. I actually looked forward to getting dressed most mornings and having fewer choices saved me a lot of time.

2. Having fewer items of clothing made me consider accessories that I don’t normally reach for.

For the first 5 days I was always reaching for the bags that I usually wear. But needing some variety for the last 5 days, I turned to some different accessories, which was unexpected.

3. I experimented with different ways to wear my clothes.

For example, my outfit for day 9 was a pair of jeans and a tunic. Normally I would have worn this tunic with black leggings (see day 4). On day 9, I decided to knot the tunic and I really like how it turned out.

4. It’s a good way of testing if I still like a piece of clothing.

There were some outfits that I felt great in (days 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) and some that I didn’t feel as confident in (days 3, 5, 10).

Feeling this way was a clear indication that something wasn’t working for me. Simply switching out the item for something else was much better. For example, day 5. I didn’t love those items together but I did like them on other days with different items.

Documenting my outfits made it easy to go back and look at the days that I didn’t feel confident and examine why. Each of those days had items that I wasn’t sure that I wanted to keep. I did end up deciding to discard the blue tunic and the striped sweater, as I didn’t feel great when I wore them.

5. I need more variety in my pants.

I basically only have skinny jeans, leggings or track pants. There is a pair of boyfriend jeans in my wardrobe that I will start wearing more often since doing this challenge. Maybe a pair of cropped wide leg pants would be a good addition. And a jumpsuit.

6. Speaking of pants…having a limited number to wear over the 10 days really forced me to address why I wasn’t loving a pair of jeans that I had included.

I think that the extra 2 inches on the bottom, which I always rolled up, bothered me. Since I had these pegged as an item that I might get rid of at the end of the challenge, I had nothing to lose by chopping those extra inches off. And it did help me to enjoy them more.

7. Participating in this challenge has renewed my interest in sustainable and ethical fashion.

I had watched the documentary “The True Cost” about a year ago and I had made some changes to the way that I consumed clothing, such as buying less and buying more items secondhand. However, not all of the items that I have purchased have been acquired this way.

Through the challenge, I was able to learn of some wonderful clothing brands that are doing their part to produce well made, timeless, clothing items in a sustainable and ethical way. Going forward, I will look to these types of brands and secondhand shopping for my clothing items.

8. The next time I do a wardrobe challenge or I plan a capsule wardrobe, I will be more cognizant of the weather forecast.

If I had looked ahead at the weather for this challenge, I would have included more cozy sweaters!

What I concluded

A small manageable challenge has the power to force me out of my comfort zone.

Before the challenge, I had fallen into a habit of reaching for whatever was the most comfortable and a lot of time that tended to be track pants and a sweatshirt.

The challenge forced me to get dressed everyday in something other than leggings or track pants. But it wasn’t something that I dreaded each morning.

Now that I have one clothing challenge under my belt, I think I’d like to do more even though I was very happy for the 10 days to end. Wearing just 10 pieces of clothing was challenging, especially at the end.

I may not need a ton of clothes, but I have come to the conclusion that I definitely need more than 10.

Have you done a wardrobe challenge before? Did you enjoy it? Tell me all about it in the comments.

Until next time,

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