Wardrobe Planning to
Achieve a Working Wardrobe

So, you know your flow seasonal colors and the best styles for your body shape and you've cleared out your wardrobe.

Now it's wardrobe planning time...

• How will you wear the clothes you have left?
  
• What outfits will you create?
  
• What additional items do you need to complete an outfit or to create completely new outfits?

You don't necessarily need lots of clothes to look good for every occasion. You need the right clothes. Clothes that really work for you, your budget, the occasion, your personality and the image you wish to project.

Examine Your Clothing Needs

Your wardrobe should reflect your lifestyle. For example, if you spend most of your time working most of your wardrobe should contain clothes suitable to work in.

Think about your lifestyle...

• What do you spend your time doing?
  
• Where do you spend most of your time?
  
• And what types of clothing do you need for these activities? 

For example...

• Working -- if you spend most of your time working most of your clothing should be suitable for work. Think about whether you need formal business attire or business casual or a mix of both

• Mom stuff -- if you spend most of your time running kids around you mostly need comfortable casual wear

• Sporting and outdoor activities -- require sportswear

• Home relaxing -- requires sports or casual wear

• Shopping and socializing -- casual or smart casual wear

• Entertaining -- dependent upon the style of entertaining you do you may require anything from casual or smart casual to formal evening wear

• Sleeping -- do you need sexy nightwear, no nightwear, warm nightwear

Work out where you spend your time. List all the different activities you do and order them by amount of time spent doing them.

It's easiest to think of this by day, then by week then by season or season pair (that is spring/summer and fall/winter).  Wardrobe planning is easiest just before or at the beginning of a season, when it's natural to start thinking about updating your clothes.

Then identify the clothing styles you need for these activities. Some activities will require the same style of clothing, for example you may require casual wear for home relaxing and mom stuff. Use your activity list to create a new list of the clothing styles you need and order by the activities you spend most time doing.

Examine Your Current Wardrobe and
Build Your Shopping List

Now go back to your current wardrobe, work out where the gaps are and add the missing items to your shopping list.

Is most of your clothing suitable for going out or entertaining when you spend most of your time working? Then you'll need to add more formal business or business casual items to your shopping list.

Or do you find you're well equipped for work, but never have anything to wear out? Then you'll need to add some more smart casual and casual wear.

A useful way to identify the gaps is to identify clothing capsules within your wardrobe and then work out the extra items you need to expand the capsule or identify new wardrobe capsules required.

Layout clothes from your current wardrobe on your bed to try out new combinations of tops and bottoms. Try on the combinations you like to make sure they really work.

Then take photographs of the outfits (either on yourself or laid out on your bed or the floor), print them out to create a portfolio of your current outfits. Organize the photos by wardrobe category (casual, business casual and so on). Use these photographs to help you shop for additional items.

The Wardrobe Magic ebook is a great wardrobe planning resource.  It includes many illustrated examples of the clothing capsule concept. See my review here.