Thursday 22 October 2015

Autumn capsule wardrobe for Project 333

I have now been taking part in Project 333 for three years. The idea behind Project 333 is to limit yourself to a wardrobe of 33 items of clothing and accessories for each season to cover the following 3 months, hence the 333. I have to admit that I bend the rules a bit and don't include any accessories in my 33, however I still find it a challenging exercise. Over the years I have discovered that what helps to combat any boredom is to build a capsule wardrobe with clothes that will mix and match,  so you can create lots of different outfits even though your wardrobe is smaller.

As a member of the Looking Stylish Style Club, I have had some good advice from Maria and the other members. I now know the most flattering neutrals in my existing wardrobe so I can build on those, although realistically I also have to work with the clothes that I already have until I can afford to replace them.



 



I included the above photos in my previous posts: first my main neutral of brown then my new purchases of a sand cardigan and trousers, followed by my secondary neutral of navy and finally accents of teal and coral. All of these go well together - allowing me to create several different outfits - and I love both teal and coral, so it is a bonus that they are good colours for me.



The first photo above shows the three tops that I bought in London last week. Several people thought that I suited olive, so I have included my olive cardigan and a top as shown in the second photo, with two items below them that are on my shopping list. If I succeed in buying all of these items, they will definitely enhance my basic wardrobe, blending with both brown and navy.


These three accessories will be a good addition to my wardrobe, as they will go with most of the items shown above as well as many of the ones below. I have shown a few of my other accessories in some of these photos, however I do have many other scarves, shoes, bags and pieces of jewellery to ring the changes. Now you know why I exclude my accessories!

So far I have 24 items of clothing in my capsule, which would have been a total of 31 if I had included the accessories in these photos. I am adding the next four tops on the basis that they are colourful (yay!) and will go with some of the trousers shown above. Finally, a grey pair of trousers that I'm not quite ready to discard, a red knitted jacket and two jackets that will look fine worn with both the grey trousers and navy jeans, even though they aren't in my most flattering colours. That leaves me with one more item, which - with several social occasions coming up over the next three months as well as Christmas - is likely to be a dress.




My Autumn capsule wardrobe therefore consists of five pairs of trousers, seventeen tops, nine jackets or cardigans, a navy mac and a dress. Mixing and matching all of these should give me enough options to wear a different outfit every day over the next three months. Do you have a capsule wardrobe? What are your main neutrals and accents?

9 comments:

  1. I have to have another look at Project 333. I gave it a go for our Autumn (Southern Hemisphere) and Winter but I like to vary my colours too much and got a bit stir crazy with the limited colour palette I had given myself. By the last three weeks I was wearing what I liked. Spring I have meandered back into old habits. Carol S

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  2. Good luck if you decide to try again, Carol! As you can see, I have a lot of neutrals at the moment as I gradually move away from navy and grey to brown and sand, plus accents of coral and teal. However you will also see that I have olive, red and purple tops plus one yellow top so I'm hardly colour-deprived! I also have a myriad of colourful scarves if I feel the capsule is becoming a bit restricted, so hopefully I can stick with my 33. I have 6 short-sleeved tops, which I will probably replace with long-sleeved ones once the weather becomes colder, so that will also help relieve the monotony.

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  3. Hello! I have been following this discussion/debate over your 333 wardrobe and it has been most helpful and fun as well...I have been 'coloured' and I am an 'autumn' so i already have lots of rich bark brown, sepia, burnt sienna, dark mustard along
    with hunter green, olive green, a rich cranberry and of course navy blue...so my autumn colour palette is much the same as yours! I do use a few scarves...mixed colours of cranberry, dark gold, forest green and browns and navys.
    What i think is maybe more important than just selecting great colours, is to find your style...how you dress...i used to be described as an eddie bauer girl...but now that i am much older than 'girl', i still want to have a distinctive style! I have been using pinterest to pick outfits but i tend to lean towards that younger look of long sleeve teeshirts, collar blouses, a vest or cardigan worn with jeans. I think finding some coloured jeans such as you were discovering different wonderfully coloured trousers, is really a great idea to infuse colour into an outfit. Hopefully, i can find some great fitting pants...it is sooo frustrating to find well fitted pants/jeans! I also think that slack/jeans should be narrow at the ankle...straight legged all the way down..not
    the skinny fit...but wearing even the slightest flair seems to make my outfits look 'old'..any thoughts on creating one's perfect style for the older woman? I dont want to be wearing cardigan twinsets and tunics that most over 60 women chose to wear!
    thanks for a great fashion/wardrobe blog!! its been great reading and learning along with you creating the perfect outfits! will you be modeling and posting some of your outfits? ...lorette

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  4. Thanks for your thought-provoking comments, Lorette. You are quite right in saying how important it is to discover your own style, though I do think that choosing the most flattering colours is equally important, especially for those of us who are "a certain age"! Maybe it doesn't matter so much what colours you wear on your bottom half, but in my case I know that black tops are a no-no as they make me look tired. I'll definitely be posting some of my outfits (probably in my next post) and giving some thought on perfect style for older women. Like you, I'm not ready for cardigan twinsets!

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  5. Love the khaki choices. xx
    www.assessorise.com

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  6. Thank you so much! That did the trick, you saved me more endless hours of searching for a fix.


    Wardrobe Accessories

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