Capsule wardrobes make a lot of sense – you have more outfit options from less clothes. Which means that you buy less, get more wear out of what you do buy and have less decision fatigue when faced with that daily decision of deciding what to wear.
I’ve created an example capsule below for anyone with a hybrid work pattern, where you spend a mix of time being both visible (eg, in the office and on online meeting platforms) and less visible (eg, when you are working offline from home).
Here are some top tips for replicating this for yourself:
- Think about your style personality and personal brand to make sure that the clothes you choose within the capsule really reflect you. This example is put together for a lady who works in the legal profession and who wants to look smart, efficient and professional.
- Choose colours that work for your unique colouring (your mix of skin tone, eye colour and hair colour). In this example, the lady has warm blonde hair, a warm golden skin tone and green eyes – so she suits the Light+Warm palette. I selected the tan and cream for summer neutral shades and added in a sage green as an accent colour.
- Choose styles that work for your silhouette, height, scale and proportions. The lady in question here has shoulders that are wider than her hips and a straighter rather than curvy silhouette. So I’ve chosen a suit that comes with a jacket that will flatter and feel more comfortable for wider shoulders, an asymmetric waistcoat and wide pencil stripe trousers. The panelled A line dress and pleated skirt, like the wider leg trousers, create breadth at the hemline which creates balance with the wider shoulders and adds more curvature.
Here are the 12 items I selected:-
The first 5 outfits are examples of work from home outfits using the casual jeans and also the smart-casual green trousers all worn with trainers on the basis that her feet will be unseen. The level of refinement increases as you go from left to right, ending with a jacket option for online meetings where she wants to increase her impact and/or authority.
The second set of 5 trouser outfits are for days in the office where she is visible and may want to have a more professional look.
Finally, here are the options I created for this lady for days in the office using the skirt and dress. Again these create more of a professional edge.
There are many more outfits that can be created from this capsule but hopefully this illustrates how you can create so many outfits from so few clothes – in this case just 12 items – and how you can interchange the clothes to increase or decrease the level of formality of your outfits to suit your hybrid work patterns.
If you’d like any help or inspiration putting together a capsule wardrobe for work and/or home just get in touch. If you’re someone who likes to visualise your outfit options you might also like my Stylist At Hand digital wardrobe app where you upload your clothes and I can create outfit images just like these above – Stylist At Hand.