The Capsule Challenge: 5 Items, 5 Outfits

One of my favorite wardrobe building principals that I have taught to hundreds of clients is to create a wardrobe capsule.  Typically a capsule involves between 7 – 12 items of clothing that work together interchangeably, mixing and matching to create up to 20 (or more) outfits.  This strategy works well while building your wardrobe each season, too!

We wanted to have a little fun with it and decided to put our style expert skills to the test.  Today on StyleFinder LIVE we took the Capsule Challenge: 5 items, 5 outfits.  And can I just say that we passed with flying colors? Here’s how I pulled it off.

First, I chose a destination.  After all, how can you know what to pack if you don’t know where you’re going?  Because I’m a wine enthusiast, I chose California wine country – Sonoma Valley, to be exact.  We’re heading there this weekend and I wanted to look chic!  (a gal can dream, right?)

The core pieces:

1/ White silk tank

2/ Tees by Tina navy skirt

3/ Navy and white print cropped pants

4/ Long white cardigan

5/ White linen jacket with embroidery 

Each of my core items can be mixed and matched and worn with the others.  Choosing a neutral palette of navy and white gave me great versatility.  Typically I recommend that you choose 2-3 colors as the foundation of your capsule.  Then I added in different shoes and accessories to make it more fun.

*In reality, I would pack more than 1 shirt because I have been known to spill red wine or coffee. ;-)

Now that I have my foundation, I added in a few fun items to stretch these pieces and give them some personality.

 The accents:

1/ Navy cropped leggings

2/ White with navy ‘literary print’ scarf

3/ Blue color burst scarf

4/ My personal hat

The scarves were worn a couple of different ways. In the picture above, I wore them as a ruana but I could also wear them around my neck just draped, or in a loop. 

I chose silver as my metal, adding in pewter metallic wedges and silver jewelry (that would coordinate with everything).  I decided at the last minute to add in my caramel slides because they coordinated with my hat, and chose a pair of gold earrings with blue freshwater pearls to tie in with them. 

In actuality, I believe I could create at least 13 looks just using these pieces mentioned above, which just goes to show what’s really possible when we see it from a different perspective.  This was a fun exercise that stretched the way we think about putting outfits together, and helped us see how creative we could be.

 My challenge to you: get into your closet and create your very own Capsule Challenge!  Choose 5 items of clothing and create 5 different looks, adding in only accessories to change it up.  Then tag us on Facebook @StyleFinderBoutique or @shopstyleFinder on Insta.  We’d love to see what you create!