Issue 04. The question I ask myself when shopping for my capsule wardrobe

It's simpler than you'd think.

Jun 18, 2024

If you’ve ever tried to reduce your shopping consumption, you’ve probably come up with rules or tricks or questions to guide your decision-making. Maybe you’ve tried to limit how many items you buy in a month, or in a year. Maybe you only buy-second hand, or from sustainably-minded brands. I’ve tried a bunch of these rules, but the question that’s been working for me lately is pretty simple.

Do I like this item enough to wear it at least once a week?

If we expect the majority of our wardrobes to be worn once a week, each item needs to meet pretty high standards. The impulse purchases, the “kind-of-right” items, the things you like-but-aren’t-crazy-about suddenly lose their glow.

This criteria helps me curate my wish list by keeping me in-tune with the reality of my lifestyle and the things I’m doing and experiencing on a weekly basis.

So many factors drive what we want to buy for our wardrobes. This can be the ads we see on social media, the things we’ve been told we need to have to be stylish, all the noise telling us to be someone else. I also find that when I have items in my wardrobe that I’m continually passing over for reason or another, these items give me the sense that I need to either replace, or buy something else to make that item ‘work.’ In this way, focusing on what isn’t working in a wardrobe is very different from identifying what’s missing.

Here’s an example. I recently moved back to Northern California after 10 years in Seattle. Many aspects of my life have changed, from the weather, where and how I work, and my daily activities.

With this criteria in mind, I’ve been paying attention to what I metaphorically ‘reach for’ but don’t have each morning. Recently, that’s been a pair of brown woven leather flats which would nicely contrast with the blue jeans I often wear, don’t require socks (free the feet, ok!), and keep my toes out of sight when my toenail polish is chipping.

A few things that caught my eye recently, not all met my “wear it weekly” criteria.

I’ve bought many “okay” shoes in the past. And that’s how I would keep accumulating more. I would buy a pair, decide I can’t wear them every day for one reason or another, so the obvious answer is need a second pair, a third pair, or more, in the same category, until I have enough shoes in the category to wear once a week or more.

But what if I waited and only bought a pair I liked enough to wear once a week? The stakes for purchasing become higher.

For me, applying this rule has meant that I simply have to try things on in-person. It’s so much easier to listen to my body’s reaction to an item of clothing in-person, especially when I haven’t already forked over the money for it and have to package and ship it back.

Using this criteria, I’ve found making decisions on what to buy (or not buy) so much easier.

Back to the shoe example, I had a good list of criteria in mind and had a few weeks of data backing up my desire for a non-sneaker, non-sandal shoe for mild weather days. When I went to Nordstrom this weekend and found a shoe that were comfortable and stylish enough I’d want to wear them every week, it was pretty easy to say yes.

The same day, I tried on a cotton barn-style jacket useful for our frequently chilly coastal evenings. Even though the specific jacket had been on my shortlist (and now on sale!), as soon as I put it on in store, I could tell it wasn’t something I’d feel good about wearing every week, so it was easy to leave behind.

Let me know in the comments, do you have criteria to guide your shopping? Would you ever try looking for things that you’d wear on a weekly basis?

I’ll share more examples of applying this concept soon. xx

Intuitive Style

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