A Guide to Creating Your Travel Capsule Wardrobe

In this photo, we have the subject modelling a pair of waterproof hiking boots and bringing back the 90s with a stylish tied-around-the-waist sweater. (I hope the above picture comes off with the humour that was intended, and not an awful display of misdirected narcissism.)

In this week’s post we’ll guide you through the procedure to creating a capsule wardrobe for travel. A capsule wardrobe is a small number tops and bottoms that can be mixed and matched to maximize the number of outfits while minimizing the number of individual clothing items. The point is to have a small number of items that can be worn repeatedly, interchangeably and for any occasion. A capsule wardrobe for travel specifically will be much smaller than a typical capsule wardrobe.

Capsule wardrobes are super useful when travelling because they allow you to bring a minimal amount of clothing while still having a variety of styles and degrees of sophistication for your travelwear.

If you need some more convincing, here’s a bit of math (yay, math!). To make it easy, let’s look at these two simplified examples of what could be packed for a trip. In both cases, we have 2 bottoms and 3 tops. On the left hand side, we can make 3 outfits with the 5 pieces we chose. However, on the right hand side, the colour and style of all pieces allow each top to be worn with each bottom, thus giving us a total of 6 outfits for the same number of clothing items.

Convinced? I hope so! Let’s get to creating your own capsule wardrobe. I’ll be illustrating these tips with part of my own travel wardrobe. For the purpose of this example, I’m packing for moderate temperatures, with outfits ranging from wear in a fashionable city to climb on the side of a cliff in the middle of nowhere.

The first thing to do is to decide on a colour scheme for your wardrobe. It’s easier to mix and match if all your brightly coloured items are in the same colour palette. You can choose a single main colour, like blue, or a few complementary colours like blue and orange. In addition to your pops of colour, other items should be neutral. I chose purple to be my main colour, with other items in white/grey/black.

Next, it’s time to select a few pairs of pants (or skirts) and a few shirts. Try to pick the most versatile pieces, and keep in mind that we’re trying to have every top match each bottom.

For the pants, I like to bring a pair or two of black merino leggings, and one pair of jeans or travel pants. As for shirts, I usually bring two tees, one or two longsleeve tees and one sweater (these make up my base, first and mid layers), as well as one “nice” item of clothing I can wear on a fancy night out. The latter typically consists of a nice shirt or thin dress that can be worn with the merino leggings and nice shoes. This brings me to my final point: I only bring two pairs of shoes, one pair of hiking boots and one pair of nice shoes. As for the math, I have a total of 11 outfits for 8 items of clothing. With these few items you can go from casual hiking to a fancy night out, no problem.

All in all, capsule wardrobes are fantastic for budget and light travelers. Comment below with your experiences creating your own capsule wardrobe! I leave you with this final thought…

Travel fashion, baby.

Gen

Photo creds for the first and last photos go to Kyla and our friend Nicole, respectively.