Musing on the optimum size of the capsule wardrobe

Recently, I have been working on a complicated spreadsheet on which I aim to record the four capsule collections for the year and the clothing items that have actually been worn. I still haven’t designed a capsule for spring or summer, but it struck me that the spring and autumn capsules would probably be very similar, if not the same, as my lifestyle is pretty much weather dependant. Using the technical/ outdoor clothing layering principle, the summer t-shirt can become the spring or autumn base layer worn under a shirt or fleece, and in winter the autumn long-sleeved t-shirt goes under a thicker mid-layer fleece. I haven’t quite got my head round this yet, but the implication is that overall the number of clothing items should be less.

 

Following on from this, I began to think about the optimum number of clothes overall in the capsule-based wardrobe, taking into account the four seasons, and the ratio of tops to bottoms in the ideal capsule. I know that some hardcore Project 333 followers aspire to only owning 33 items in total, but that is too extreme for me! The spreadsheet began to expand as I recorded every item of clothing – a surprisingly large amount still, despite several purges. Then, I realised I would have to get the wretched suitcase out from under the bed and record the items that I had put away whilst deciding whether or not to recycle them.

The formula that I have devised for each season comprises an average of seven bottoms, trousers and skirts, between eleven and fifteen tops, depending on the season and between four and nine fleeces or second layers, again depending on the season. In the winter the capsule needs more fleeces, whereas in the summer more short sleeved lighter tops are the norm. On top of this I’ve added a ‘going-out’ outfit of a non-waterproof jacket, top and trousers or skirt. I’m still not counting in shoes, scarves, bags or waterproof coats. I’ve based this on a wearing cycle of two weeks, on the basis that I normally wear trousers for two days and have a clean top every day.

It was fairly easy then to open up a second page on the spreadsheet and work out a four season capsule wardrobe ‘on paper’. Of course, this is nothing like the fun of going through the wardrobe, mixing and matching different outfits and designing a new capsule at the start of every season. However, it has proved to me that, at least on paper, I still have far too many clothes and that I can already build capsules for each season comprised of nearly all technical clothing. When I started the process I was convinced that I did not have enough short sleeved techie tops and that I’d have to buy more next summer. In fact, the problem wasn’t that I didn’t have enough t-shirts, it was that I wasn’t wearing them because I was ‘saving them for best’. That particular dragon will have to be slain!