I’m done with my seasonal capsule wardrobe. At least for the foreseeable future. It seems weird to write that only a week after publishing my fall capsule wardrobe post.
But it doesn’t feel right. I should be excited about it but I’m not. If anything, I feel really uninspired and restricted.
Maybe I got too far ahead of myself. I wanted to start my capsule on September 21st. But, aside from a few cooler days, we’re still having 80+ degree days (26+ C). Maybe I wouldn’t have felt like this if I had just waited. But deep down, I don’t think that’s the case.
I didn’t sleep much last night. Which gave me a lot of time to think and reflect. Naturally, I ended up thinking about what I was going to wear today and I couldn’t come up with many options that I was genuinely excited about.
Which led me to wondering: why am I even doing it?
The more I thought about it, the more I thought about how I went from being completely unintentional with my wardrobe at one point to being really restrictive and obsessed with it.
I have placed so many rules on myself regarding my wardrobe that it’s starting to make me miserable. Honestly, I don’t want to think about clothes this much.
It also feels unhealthy. I felt really down on Sunday after getting the urge to remove something from my wardrobe but not finding anything that I really wanted to get rid of. And up until that point, I was removing things just for the sake of removing them.
Luckily a lot of them were put in storage while I figured out what to do with them. A couple have now been added back into my closet.
I also feel a lot of guilt whenever I make any new clothes. Which I really enjoy doing. But I spend way too much time thinking about how it’s “1 more thing” in my closet. There’s really no need to think this way and the expectations that I put on myself are starting to have negative consequences.
How did I get here?
Let’s back up a bit…when I started to downsize my wardrobe around 6 years, ago, it was a good thing. I no longer thought that being a shopaholic was “fun”. Seriously, why do we even joke about this and why are their cutesy movies and books about it???
I had way too many clothes, and a lot of it was never worn. Removing the excess allowed me the chance to address some of my shopping behaviors and made me more conscientious about what I was bringing in.
I started experimenting with a capsule wardrobe a few years later. I started off slowly, with 10×10 challenges. Eventually, I progressed to seasonal capsules.
And for a long time, I really enjoyed them. I felt creative and I liked having a smaller amount of clothes to dress from. It seemed to make my life easier.
But this past summer, I didn’t bother putting one together. I thought that it was because I just don’t like summer dressing and I knew that I’d only wear the same things over and over anyways.
I thought that putting together a fall capsule wardrobe would be exciting, and while the act of creating it was fun, I’m really hating it.
All I can think about are the things that I own that I can’t wear.
While I still think that capsule wardrobes are amazing and can teach you a lot about your personal style, I think I need to let go of the idea that I NEED to do a capsule wardrobe.
I don’t plan to give up on the idea of a capsule wardrobe entirely. I really enjoy creating smaller capsules and I feel like they allow me to stretch my styling muscles a little more. I’ll be doing a mini “Capsule X 5” wardrobe soon and I’m feeling really excited about that. But I will be looking at my entire wardrobe when I pull those 5 pieces.
And even though I’m giving up on the seasonal capsule, I have no intention to go out and buy a ton of stuff. But I’m removing the restrictions there too. As long as it’s an item that I love and it fits into my wardrobe (I can think of multiple outfits with it), I am allowing myself the freedom to buy it without guilt. I won’t be following a “1 in, 1 out” rule anymore but will remove items when I don’t want them any longer.
You can expect to see all of the items in my wardrobe going forward. And I can expect (hopefully) a more relaxed relationship with my wardrobe. I want to get back to a place where my wardrobe feels fun. I honestly haven’t felt that in a long time.
Have you removed any restrictions from a certain area of your life? How did it go?
Lately I’ve been feeling the same thing: that I didn’t have space for new clothes and shoundn’t be sewing. It’s a bad feeling. I started sharing my space this year and had to downsize a little, but I realized I don’t have to wait for the need of new clothes to sew them. We need to do the things that bring us joy.
I never made a seasonal capsule wardrobe because in my country (Brazil) the seasons are not that distinguishable, but I know what it feels like to impose a lot of pointless restrictions on myself. I’m in a nobuy community on reddit and someone said that overconsumption and exagerated minimalism come from the same impulse: perfectionism. It made a lot of sense to me. In my nobuy I started to suffer a lot for not being allowed to buy books and at some point I just decided I needed that. I started buying one book at a time and things stopped feeling so heavy. I don’t intend on going back to buying lots of books I’m never going to read, but found a balance instead.
It’s so important that you do the things that bring you joy! I’m so happy that you find that in sewing.
I find your comment about overconsumption and exaggerated minimalism coming from the same impulse: perfectionism to be very interesting! Perfectionism is something that I struggle with. Having been an over-consumer most of my life, and now striving for less and less, this really strikes home!
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Hi! I’ve just found your blog and I wanted to say that I really enjoy your style and approach to dressing. It’s so refreshing to see content about slow fashion and intentional wardrobes that’s not the same old spread of neutral basics (though I have nothing against people who dress that way!).
I was also drawn to capsule wardrobes and applying rules at one point, but now I see them more as experiments than “ways of life” that I must maintain ad infinitum. The thing about experiments is that, successful or not, their purpose is to help you discover or learn something. And through years of playing with these wardrobe formulas, I feel I’ve learned enough about my style and dressing habits to the point where these experiments are no longer necessary or insightful.
I hope you find peace in letting go of the rigid rules, while keeping the lessons that still hold importance to you.
Hi! Thank you for this! I definitely feel like a capsule wardrobe was helpful to in developing my style and like you, to figure out the wardrobe/outfit formulas that I enjoy. But at some point I think it’s normal to grow and move on, as you’ve stated. And I’m now looking forward to wearing all of my clothes…I feel so much freedom already!
This is so good and heartening to read. I’m exactly the same, although I never got as far as you with the capsules. However, recently I actually downloaded local weather patterns and tried to plan capsules around repeated cycles of rainfall and temperatures… I mean WTAF?? The whole thing was so laboursome that by the time I looked at my actual clothes I couldn’t face them anymore. I felt sick for thinking of how long I’d wasted on this vanity project, ignoring my kids and home sometimes while I scrolled for ideas of how to capsulise the clothes I felt I ought to wear but just kind of prefer looking at than wearing. I mean, it feels like a bit of a mental health problem tbh. I do think my over consumption stems from my mum, who I love dearly, but she gets so excited about dressing and fabrics and making and shopping that we connect over it and spur each other on. You and I have chatted about to before but it’s so helpful for me to read your honesty about this. I once put a vintage silk blouse in a frame and hung it in the wall as I knew that I’d never wear it but loved looking at it and thinking about where it had been. Maybe there’s something in that… although my room is like a thrift shop at the moment with half-worn things slung everywhere… it’s an affliction for sure. Ps. My Roebucks filet we chatted about in IG is one it’s way 🙄🙄😬
Wow! You were all in on that! I could never trust the weather enough to plan a capsule around which is why I started a fall capsule when it’s still high 80s/90s 😆
And I agree that it feels like a mental health problem. Our clothes should be fun and functional but they shouldn’t consume all of our thoughts. I think that your self awareness about your consumption is great. At the end of the day, it’s about appreciating what we already own and adding to it thoughtfully. I don’t believe that there’s a magic number for the clothes that we have. And I think it’s great that you have something fun to do with your mom. I definitely don’t think you should feel guilty about that. I’m jealous…my mom lives in another country and I haven’t seen her since 2019 (but hopefully soon).