November - review of month one of the winter capsule

When I look back at the photograph of the clothes rails draped in old bed sheets in my last blog post I’m horrified – despite throwing away five sacks of clothes and one sack of shoes there still seems to be a lot of things hanging there. In my defence, my stuff takes up just over half of one rail, and the photo was taken before I had a major re-organisation and folded many fleeces and tops away in the drawers. I’m please to say that the wire rack of baskets has now gone out into the barn and my hanging clothes now occupy half the wardrobe. In addition I’ve got a drawer in each of the chests of drawers and two underbed storage crates.

One in...

 

 

One out...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the first month of the winter capsule comes to an end I’ve decided to review exactly what I’ve been wearing. The weather here has been unseasonably warm, up to 20c on some days, so I haven’t needed any of the thick woolly jumpers or worn the new thick Rohan fleece. However, I have been doing really well fighting the urge to ‘save it for best’ and I’ve regularly worn the three of the new Rohan tops that I bought in Stratford. I do love a good spreadsheet, so following the example of Recovering Shopaholic I’m starting to compile a spreadsheet of all my clothes and capsule collections. So far I’ve just collated the autumn and winter versions. I’ve just started to use Pinterest too, so I’m planning some boards there with pins of each capsule.

It’s been really easy to keep tabs on the clothes and see what exactly I’ve been wearing. In November I only actually wore 23 out of the 34 items in the capsule. I also recycled a Joules cord skirt that was too big. In fact, it was too big when I bought it, although it was the correct size and despite my attempts to take in the waistband, since I lost weight in the summer it was in danger of ending up around my ankles. The problem with skirts and the technical wardrobe concept is that they create a whole new problem in terms of shoes/tights/boots, especially in winter. The last time I wore a pair of leather boots into Limoges it poured with rain and my feet were soaked.

The number of items in the winter capsule has crept up to 34 as I discovered a fluffy blue fleece that matches so well with all the other clothes in the capsule and my thick lined Rohan trousers that I had completely forgotten. These trousers have suffered from ‘save it for best’ syndrome for several years so I’m looking forward to some cold weather to try them out. Overall I’m very pleased with the winter capsule so far. I never had a day when I couldn’t decide what to wear or felt that the clothes I had picked were inappropriate. December is likely to be colder, so I’ll see how the rest of the capsule functions and I’m looking forward to the arrival of a new Rohan long sleeved top for Christmas.