The other week I was mowing the lawn, and it came to me that if, God forbid, I had to replace all my vintage, it would be horribly expensive. It got me thinking too that if someone today wanted to start to wear vintage, where would they begin? The cost of everything keeps going up, older vintage keeps getting harder to find, and on top if it all, vintage takes time to find as well. If it can't be found in wearable condition, then one would have to do a lot of mending or else get ahold of vintage style patterns and fabrics, notions, and etc. and make their own. The more I thought about it, it was overwhelming!
When I first got into wearing vintage, it was overwhelming then, and I had a hard time just finding my first few pieces. Now that I have been at it for over 10 years, I have amassed quite a collection that not only suits me but is totally wearable. However, along the way I have learned a lot. One thing I would have liked to have known earlier on was how to build a smaller capsule wardrobe to start wearing amazing vintage looks right away. In my earlier days, my vintage looks were haphazard and . . . well. . . silly. That I will admit but that was because I was learning as I went along.
Today I want to show you how to build a capsule wardrobe. With a capsule wardrobe you only need a few key pieces to make selection of amazing and polished looks. A wardrobe like this is budget friendly - because you only need a few pieces, not a lot. A small wardrobe like a capsule wardrobe is also efficient because with a few well-chosen and coordinated pieces you can have a lot of well put together and polished looks right away.
For this capsule wardrobe, the colors were primarily black and fuchsia. I think you cannot go wrong with a good basic black suit and a few key pieces. Black goes with anything and everything. With it, a bold color - fuchsia. The pieces I used were a basic black skirt suit, a fuchsia skirt suit, a black dress, a fuchsia dress, white gloves, clutch bag with the colors black, pink, and green, black suede heels, dark brown alligator pumps, a large brimmed black wool hat, a tilt hat with roses, and a white blouse. My jewelry consisted of pearl and rhinestone pieces - a pearl necklace, a set of pearl screw back earrings, two felt flower brooches, and a pair of rhinestone bow motif screw back earrings. To add a layer of ultra fancy, a fuchsia evening gown with a vintage rhinestone necklace.
With these pieces, I was able to wear the black and fuchsia suits on their own and also paired together. With the black suit blazer, I was able to wear that with the black dress and the fuchsia dress. The Fuchsia suit blazer was also able to be worn with both dresses. With these pieces, I could wear all black, all fuchsia, or a mixture of the two main colors. Not photographed, I did have a pair of green heels which I did wear with these looks. When I felt like it, I changed out the felt flower corsages. Not photographed, I did wear the blouse with the skirts and went without the blazers. With a few pieces, all of which fit into one suitcase, I was able to have a more than a week's worth of looks. Not only did I have a week's worth of coordinated looks, but I was able to go from casual (skirt and blouse) to very formal (evening gown or matched skirt suit).
So how many of each item did I have? I had the following:
- 2 suits (which gave me two blazers and two skirts)
- 1 blouse (white cotton with embroidery)
- 2 dresses (black and fuchsia)
- 2 hats (black wool with large brim and small tilt hat with multicolored flowers)
- 3 pairs of shoes (black suede, brown alligator, and green leather)
- 1 evening gown
- 2 necklaces (triple strand of pearls and a rhinestone)
- 2 pair of earrings (pearls and rhinestones)
- 2 felt flower brooches (pink roses and white flowers)
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