Glitter & Grace

I can’t believe that it’s already December. Where has fall gone? With the changing of the seasons, it’s time to start thinking about updating our wardrobes with more cold-weather items. This week I’m retiring my fall capsule, and bringing in my winter items – I’m so excited to start wearing them! As a reminder, these thirty two items made up my fall wardrobe, the pieces I’ve been wearing this season. I never had a chance to shot photos of my fall outfits, but I’ve still been diligently recording the items I wore most often. Overall, I enjoyed most of my fall pieces. However, I think that I got into a bit of a rut, turning to the same few items because they were easy and comfy. So now, I’m dreaming of sweater dresses, tall boots, and some new jeans for winter. But before I get ahead of myself, here are a few lessons I learned from this fall capsule wardrobe. I know that my style is continuing to develop, and with each capsule completed I feel like I’m learning more about my own unique approach to fashion.

• Sometimes fewer pieces is better. With only thirty two items in my closet, you would think that it would be hard to feel like I had too many options. However, with my fall capsule I felt that way often. I think that this was mostly because I had many tops to choose from. I was overwhelmed by the variety of tees, blouses, sweatshirts, and sweaters hanging side by side. In my summer capsule recap I acknowledged that I do better with fewer options, and I’m vowing to stick to this with my winter capsule. So, in planning my new set of pieces, I’m ditching any items that feel extraneous. I’d rather cultivate a slightly smaller collection of pieces, maybe twenty four or five, that all feel perfectly suited to the season.
•  Take time to plan creative outfit combinations. With my summer capsule, I planned over forty outfits to shoot for the blog. This helped me to think about all the creative ways to use each item in my capsule. It also offered me a template of inventive outfits to enjoy wearing for the rest of the season. Since I didn’t shoot outfit photos for my fall capsule, I skipped this step, thinking I would come up with new combinations on the fly. Turns out that this planning step was crucial. Without it, I found myself in a major rut this season. Most of the outfits I wore were super basic, and way too many of them revolved around the same couple of items (mostly my gray cashmere sweater, navy down vest, and always-reliable blue jeans). I think that this is the main reason that I grew bored with my capsule – and why I’m introducing my winter pieces a few weeks early. From now on, I’ll definitely take the time to plan fun and interesting outfits from the start.
• The transition seasons are difficult – especially the first time around. My summer capsule was relatively simple to plan, since summer weather in San Francisco, although perhaps colder than we’d like, is relatively predictable. Since the temperature didn’t change much from June through September, it was pretty simple to put together a set of appropriate clothing items. This fall, however, was much more difficult – and to be honest, I didn’t do the best job. Although luckily I didn’t include too many warm weather shorts or dresses, since it got colder pretty quickly once fall hit, I also didn’t add enough jackets, boots, and scarves. So I’ve been pretty chilly these last few weeks! I think planning for winter will pretty straight forward – now that I’ve pulled my warm coats from storage – but I’ll definitely have to plan better to address this problem come spring.

Next week I’ll be posting some winter style inspiration, and then my newest capsule collection!