Capsule Wardrobes/Closet Cleanout: Finding My Style

So when I started the idea of really paring down my wardrobe, I was at first at a loss of where to start. I realized that while just getting rid of items in my closet would have made the overall size of wardrobe smaller (and therefore less likely to overwhelm me each morning), I also needed to come up with an overall identity when it came to my clothes.

Well the internet is my friend, so I hoped on Google and Pinterest and set to work at finding what I would define as my style. Now when you think of style, a lot of things come to mind (preppy, girly, hipster, glam, etc.), but I've found that for myself, that one label did not fit (which I imagine is the same for a lot of people). I had a TON of outfits/pieces pinned on various boards on Pinterest, but a lot of what I was pinning was stuff that I liked but I would never actually wear. So I ended up slimming down my Pinterest "closet" along with my actual closet to images of outfits/pieces I would actually wear. Then I made myself a list of my day-to-day figuring out what kind of wardrobe I would need.

-Work: Casual (as long as it isn't dirty, torn, or too revealing we can wear pretty much whatever we want) with a few "business casual" pieces on hand for conferences/big meetings. I have some days where I like to go more business casual, just because I can and want to.

-Weekend: Casual

-Event Specific: Weddings, bridal/baby showers, vacations, conventions, sporting events, concerts

I'm very lucky that even at work I can wear casual clothes, since that means I don't really need to separate my work clothes from my non-work clothes (when you're pressed for space this is a big plus!) This also means that I can eliminate some items from my wardrobe (or if I never had them I now know NOT to buy them!)

With this list, I turned back to my (now slimmer) Pinterest boards and made a new board with images that represented the types of outfits/items that I saw myself wearing.

A few examples...

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 

Besides narrowing down the types of outfits I could see myself wearing, I also wanted to determine the color palette for my wardrobe. I narrowed it down to some neutrals with some of my favorite bright/accent colors.

palettes made on color-hex.com

I could probably wax poetic about my favorite colors, but I'll spare you for you *wink wink* I'll just say that while a lot of the capsule/minimalist wardrobes I've seen tend to skew to the nothing-but-neutrals territory (which is great if those are your colors), it's not for me. I like colors, so neutrals will be more of my base with the brights being the accent and personality of my outfits. With that said, there are also two other things that will be a staple in my wardrobe:

      image                                                   image

Animal prints (especially leopard) and metallics are great neutrals that most people can pull off and I personally love wearing.

Obviously the inspiration photos and color palettes are starting points and aren't the be-all-to-end-all blueprints. With any sort of plan, you have to be adaptable and change as needed. But at the moment I have a vision and can roll with it. 

On my next post: Cleaning out the closet and what I did with what I didn't keep!