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Lighter Living Task #16 Capsule Wardrobes

Hangers with woman clothes wardrobe

Lighter Living is more than a book. Lighter Living Tasks are weekly suggestions to make progress on decluttering, organizing and simplifying your life. By working on parts of your home each week, you will breaking big projects into small, manageable tasks.

The concept of a capsule wardrobe has been popular in the last few years. The definition of a capsule wardrobe is between 25-50 pieces of clothing, shoes and accessories. Usually we only wear a small percentage of the clothes in our closet in a non-pandemic era. Now that I am staying at home, I hardly wear any of the clothes in my closet. I wear workout pants or yoga pants by day with a t-shirt and pajamas at night. On a special day, I pull out a favorite pair of jeans. In other words, during the pandemic, I am down to wearing about 10 pieces total.

What is the purpose of a capsule wardrobe? On the website The Penny Hoarder, I found an article that said, “A capsule wardrobe is a limited, curated collection of clothing, shoes and accessories that can help you live with simplicity while reducing decision fatigue….Your capsule wardrobe should consist of only clothing you like and that you like on your body, and should generally coordinate enough in color and style that you can mix and match frequently.”

Underwear, loungewear and workout wear don’t count in the capsule concept. Those are about the only items I wear right now! But if I dream of going out again, I can now assess my closet for what I really do want to one day wear again in the outside world. So why not assess your wardrobe now while you have a little more time at home?

Here is what the article suggests: “Start by pulling literally everything you own out of your closet and piling it on the bed. I’m talking your clothes, your shoes, your accessories — everything. Then, separate everything into four piles: Like, love, donate (or sell!) and trash (or recycle!). Sort everything into these piles, taking time to try things on and noticing how they make you feel. Be honest with yourself about if you’ll ever really wear it again.”

I suspect we don’t need as many clothes as we have hanging up in our closets or folded in our dresser drawers. Let’s all spend a day really paring down our clothes. Then consider limiting your impulse to buy more clothes and just see if your favorites will be enough for a while.

If you want to read the full article referenced above at Penny Hoarder, click here.

Between tasks posted on this blog, be sure to read Lighter Living if you have not already.