Thursday, June 15, 2017

Capsule Travel Wardrobe

Hi everyone! I'm back from my much-needed vacation and today I'm sharing my travel capsule wardrobe. I am a classic over-packer, but for this trip space was a concern and I HAD to get my packing under control. I turned to Pinterest for help and came across this great guide using the 5-4-3-2-1 system. I started there, but ended up varying from the formula.


Union St. Tee // Target athletic tee // camp tee
Plantain tee // Reebok athletic shirt
Sloomb wool leggings // Jamie Jeans // Madewell jeans // Old Navy shorts
Chico's sweater dress // Anthropologie cardi // Kelly Anorak
Tommy Hilfiger aviators // Sloomb armwoolies // Sloomb wool scarf
Converse slip on shoes // Ryka tennis shoes

The first step was to evaluate exactly what I needed. My typical strategy has been "pack stuff I like" and that's less than helpful. We were gone roughly a week, driving, and were headed to Niagara Falls and a summer camp in Ontario. My needs were comfort for travel days, athletic wear for camp days, and one nice-ish outfit for our touristy day in Niagara. The trickiest bit for me was the weather. The summer camp was a group event, and I was warned by Canadian members of the group that it could either be sunny and beautiful, or cold, rainy, and windy. They cautioned me to pack long pants and long sleeves despite the forecast of low to mid-seventies temperatures (tank top weather for me!). I ended up listening to their advice and regretting it! It was quite a bit warmer than expected during the day, and I only packed one pair of shorts. I wore that same pair basically every day and didn't even touch my jeans! So let's call this a capsule wardrobe for mid-May rather than mid-June ;)


My favorite thing about this capsule collection is the color scheme. It's mostly black and grey, which meant everything went with everything. For example, I wore the grey sweater dress with my wool leggings the morning we took the boat ride in Niagara Falls.


The poncho they provided covered my top half, but my legs were nice and cozy in my leggings and stayed dry. When it warmed up later, I simply removed the leggings and still had a complete outfit. If it had been cool or rainy I could have thrown on my Kelly Anorak, my only piece with significant color.


The shorts, leggings, and one pair of jeans I brought were all black, and with one exception all my tshirts were grey with black accents. Toss the grey cardigan on top for cool mornings, and the textured of the cardigan still worked with the whole outfit without making me into a grey blob. If I had needed them, the navy jeans would have worked with any top. I also kept my accessories in the black/grey family, although it was warm enough that I didn't need a scarf or armwoolies. Even my shoes were black and grey! My aviator glasses were casual and went with everything.


We had a great trip, in no small part because I never had to worry about what to wear. Sometimes fewer choices can be freeing. The kids had one outfit for each day, bagged in a Ziploc and labeled with the day. They were actually excited to get up and ask for their "Friday" or "Saturday" bags! Much more excited than when I offer their entire closet and ask what they want. On this trip, I learned that less is more, and that you don't have to do anything fancy as long as you love the people who go along for the ride.

Have you tried capsule wardrobes for travel? This was a great way to get my feet wet with the idea of capsule wardrobes. I'm currently reading The Curated Closet and can't wait to pare down my whole wardrobe to things I love.

6 comments:

  1. Lovely! It is so nice to see a Capsule Wardrobe of Casual Clothing. My current work place doesn't require I dress up so even though this is a travel capsule I could easily replicate this for my daily life. Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This could easily work for a casual office! Swap out the athletic wear for tees and you'd be good to go!

      Delete
  2. I did a capsule travel wardrobe a couple years ago on a hiking/sight seeing trip, and it worked beautifully! Love your idea for the kid's clothes.
    Welcome back!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gray and black wardrobe. a woman after my own heart :) Love the capsule. You convinced me to read the book The curated closet too. I'm waiting for it to open up at the library. Good luck purging!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I ended up buying a copy because I didn't want to return it to my library!

      Delete

I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to comment below.

Newsletter sign up

.