Itinerary set, check. Hotel reservations made, check. Weather forecast reviewed, check. Plans for the trip are set, now let’s panic … I mean pack. What am I going to wear?
The weather where we are headed is much more Fall-like (as in chillier) than it is at home so I am delighted at the prospect of wearing layers and sweaters and such. The challenge for me is planning all that in advance because it’s not possible to take my entire closet with me (maybe we could a trailer for our next trip). The husband nearly always chides me about packing too much so this time I am trying to find a balance between having to wear the same two outfits for more than a week and having brought more than I could wear even once.
As I pondered on this challenge and began to think of outfits to bring, I realized that what I needed to do was build a miniature capsule wardrobe. After more pondering, I decided that I wanted to bring my black mini bucket bag with its cross-body strap that keeps my valuables secure and my hands-free as well as my black shopper tote for days when I would need to carry more than just the essentials. To keep it simple, I decided to stick with black for footwear and to choose options that would be comfortable for walking since we would be on the move quite a lot.
My next consideration was the options in my wardrobe for outerwear. I settled on a khaki fatigue style jacket and a black corduroy barn coat style jacket. Now, if I am mixing and matching with the intent of repeat wearings, how many of each clothing item do I need to bring? I settled on four because that is how many hooks I have on the rack I hung the items on for the photoshoot. Fine, whatever. As I worked through my choices and built the capsule, I found that I liked the symmetry of fours and it would likely force me to wear everything at least once if not twice or more.
Jeans were a given to be included in the capsule and along with the black accessories, I mostly stayed with a palette of blue, black, grey, tan, and cream. As I said before, I went with four of each basic item; four pairs of pants, four blouses, four knit tops/sweaters, and four cardigans. I also added a black knit skirt, two long sleeve t-shirts, and a cream camisole. Two scarves and gloves round out the accessories.
What do you think of the capsule? How well do you think it will work? I will be posting the ‘what I wore’ photos as we travel and summarize the success (or failure) of this effort in a recap.
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