How to Create Your Own Capsule Wardrobe
It’s time to detox your closet, save some money but also have a wardrobe full of the clothes you love to wear! Sounds too good to be true? We’ve teamed up with capsule wardrobe duo Lena Kraus and Lisa Wohlfarth (co-authors of The Closet Compass – Your Way To The Capsule Wardrobe) to help you create your very own capsule collection…
Lena & Lisa answer the most asked questions:
What exactly is a capsule wardrobe?
A capsule wardrobe is a wardrobe with a reduced number of garments. It is colour-coordinated, timeless and offers as many possible combinations as possible. And the most important thing is it fits you, your personal needs and your individual everyday life. You then form, usually per season, one or more capsules of clothing items that meet the previously mentioned criteria.
Why is this the best option to bring a new order to your closet?
With a capsule wardrobe, you can save time, stress and money every day, while reducing your ecological footprint. Take a close look at your closet before the start of each season, sort out your clothes and think very carefully about which garments are missing to complete the capsule. This way, you have a super overview and can banish excess clothing directly from your field of vision – you can sell them, for example, via second-hand platforms like Vinted and make some extra money.
In addition, the number of bad and frustrating purchases decrease, because you value your favourite pieces much more and are generally much happier with your wardrobe. You’re no longer constantly on the lookout for that new happy feeling.
The environment also benefits from a well-thought-out wardrobe, because the sustainable approach is deeply rooted in the basic principles of a capsule wardrobe. It’s not necessarily about buying exclusively fair fashion brands, but much more about thinking through each purchase decision thoroughly and thereby making one’s consumer behaviour healthier.
If you consider that an item of clothing is worn on average four times, and that we now buy twice as much clothing as we did 10 years ago, a rethink should take place in any case. Because an item of clothing is only considered sustainable after it has been worn 30 times! Here, too, you can reduce your ecological footprint by consciously shopping for pre-loved garments on Vinted.
How do I implement a capsule wardrobe for myself?
Here are the three overarching steps which we call the “everless” principle:
- Analyse – find your personal style
- Reduce – detox for the closet
- Implement – realise your dream wardrobe
The first step, Analyse, is all about looking for inspiration, discovering your own style, creating your personal colour concept, and using outfit formulas to develop outfit combinations that work.
The next step is to Reduce, that is, to clean out. This is another important step on the way to the capsule wardrobe because only when you have a good overview, you become aware of what exactly deserves a place in your closet.
Once you’ve established the basics in your closet, it’s now a matter of identifying missing pieces of clothing. By writing a targeted wish list, you can achieve conscious shopping behaviour. In doing so, it’s especially worthwhile to browse second-hand platforms like Vinted for new favourite pieces.
What capsule wardrobe methods do you advise to newcomers?
The “10 x 10 Challenge” is a good way to start: 10 pieces of clothing, 10 days, and a new outfit every day. With this approach, you pick 10 pieces of clothing that you like to wear and that combine well with each other. The challenge is then to create new combinations from the selected pieces for 10 days. In this way, you can test the principle of the capsule for yourself on a small scale and at the same time train your sense for combining.
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