It's an annual ritual that most people don't enjoy — digging through closets and sorting through clothing to pick out the things you don't want. Is there a better way?
The solution is a capsule wardrobe — a smaller selection of versatile, high-quality garments that you love to wear. According to Who What Wear, capsule wardrobes save money by discouraging frivolous shopping, free up your time to focus on things other than clothes and reduce stressful clutter in your life.
According to the lifestyle site Unfancy, the first step is to pare your clothes down to 37 items at the beginning of each season, including any new items you choose to purchase. The focus is on quality and wearability, not quantity — pick items you know you love and can wear in a variety of ways, like perfect black pants or a blazer you can dress up with accessories or wear with jeans for a casual look. This should include tops, bottoms, dresses, outerwear and shoes. Accessories, workout gear, swimwear, loungewear, undergarments and beat-up old gardening clothes don't count toward your 37 items. Unfancy recommends a breakdown of nine pairs of shoes, nine bottoms, 15 tops, two dresses and two jackets or coats.
Once you've selected your 37 items, wear only those items for the season, or three months. During that time, don't go shopping for new clothes unless you really can't avoid it. Instead, enjoy what you have, save your money and be creative with accessories.
At the end of the season, take a couple of weeks to plan for your next season's clothes and shop as needed. The point of a capsule wardrobe is to invest in better clothing that you actually wear and skip the fast fashion, so this is the time to pick a few high-quality items to rotate in. It's up to you how much you buy, but if you consistently buy good clothes, you might find that over time, you don't need to buy very much at all.