What interested me most about capsule wardrobes is the degree of intentional consideration that they require. There's this slow thoughtfulness that seems to color their particular flavor of consumption in a way that I find fascinating. As a recent post-grad moving from a mix of yoga pants and cute dresses to first grade appropriate attire, I'm particularly intrigued by the idea of capsule wardrobes and how the framework lends itself perfectly to good ol' fashioned wardrobe analysis. No matter who seems to be the speaker, all the guidance seems to boil down to two useful questions.
What do you have in your closet?
What do you need in your closet?
As I said, I'm coming out of college. My perspective is more geared towards building a teacher wardrobe from the ground up, particularly as I've recently realized that with this particular group of students my beloved skirts are not an option. Which I am trying to accept with serenity and grace, rather than getting huffy (as I keep telling myself, next year will be different).
When I started this journey, I think I started with the perspective that I didn't have enough clothes to get me through my teaching year. I was a college student; I'll need so much, I'd think, while poring over websites with clothes I honestly could not afford as a student and still can't as a teacher. But when I looked over my closet before beginning this fall. I realized that I had more than I'd ever thought. Enough for a workable short term feminine/business casual/classic teacher capsule wardrobe. Since then, I've realized the dearth of pants (I had two pairs of jeans in there and that was it), but to start with, I'm fairly well set up.
It's not perfect, but I'm embracing something I consider the essence of capsule wardrobes: accept that the "just right" closet doesn't happen overnight. Even the people who can afford to spend $500 on clothes every capsule don't get everything just so the first go round. That's the idea of investing in clothes. You have to be patient and wait. So yes, I will be occasionally wearing my 100% polyester blouses that I got for free from my roommate last year that fit and look like scrubs and feel like wearing a plastic bag. I have other needs (see: pants) that are more urgent than making sure that laundry day feels as cute and put together as the first day of freshly laundered clothes.
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