Plus Size Capsule Wardrobe - The Beginnings

I never thought I would be talking about fashion or clothing on my little blog, its not something I see myself ever really sharing. Being a big girl, I would always shy away from fashion posts even though I do adore clothing.

The plus size girl movement is a current and amazing thing to witness, and after reading countless blogs and videos where big wonderful fashionable girls talk style, and clothes, it gave me the push to start talking about it too, not a lot, maybe once a fortnight.

I stumbled onto the idea of Capsule Wardrobes a couple of months ago now, reading on of my fave blogs mentioned it and before I know it I'm falling down the rabbit hole. researching it like a woman possessed (If you haven't noticed I have a total addictive personality)

The idea of the capsule wardrobe is that we overhaul our closets to collate a small number of clothing items that are wearable, matchable and absolutely loved. The capsule wardobe is to limit the amount of clothing shopping you do and to really think about what you want, invest in some key items and really make use of the items that are in your wardrobe.
It is a method that people are using to make getting dressed in the mornings or weekends something that is effortless as 90% of your wardrobe will make an outfit and it will match seamlessly.

I am a woman who buys way too many clothes, I usually buy from sale racks and don't really consider what will this go with, how can I wear it, will I get a good cost per wear out of this item. Which results in me having a wardrobe full of clothes and nothing to wear. Usually my clothing barely matches, which again results in what do I wear syndrome every weekend before we leave the house to go out. It drives John crazy.

While in the rabbit hole I found  some of my fave links that talk about Capsule Wardrobes:-
Un-Fancy  this blog was so amazing to read  she also has some wardrobe planner pages you can print and use for your own capsules
LightbyCoco this is a youtube playlist from a lovely woman called Coco who takes you through her capsule wardrobe aswell as some outfits with the items she chose.
Elise Blaha A blogger I've been reading for years now and was actually how I discovered it in the first place, the link takes you to all her capsule wardrobe posts.

Now all these links are lovely! don't get me wrong, but I had a really hard time finding plus size capsule wardrobes to draw inspiration on! I found whispers of them around the youtubes and pintrest, but nothing like the above links, and that made me wonder why?

So instead of wondering I decided that I would be a plus size girl who did put up posts on capsule wardrobes, so that if any other women were looking my blog might help them with ideas or outfit inspiration! Now I am no fashion blogger, I have absolutely NO experience in plus size fashion posts! I am not in the league of Gabbifresh or the lovely Aussie SugerCoatIt or Stéphanie Zwicky. I do know what I like to wear, and I am not a bad dresser by any means! so be gentle with me, give me some time I'll get the hang of photographing myself.

So my wardrobe and drawers got completely emptied

Excuse the HORRIBLE quality shot, I didn't think I would ever blog this! this was just a picture I sent to my bestie as a OMG my room threw up kinda deal! I never expected to be showing you world war 3 bedroom status on my blog.

I bought some bags from ikea and started packing up clothes. Australia is currently about to head into Winter, so I was making a winter capsule wardrobe to wear for the next three months. So summer things went into storage. I packed HEAPS! I threw out a lot, I will put some items up for sale, I have a few items that currently dont fit but will soon so they went into the bags, if I didn't love it, it went into a donate bag. If I haven't worn it in the last 6-12 months I either sold it, or donated it. I was ruthless, I was hesitant at first then it became a overwhelming sense of joy as I saw the piles get smaller and more organized.

This process took me approximately a week to complete, my room was in a state of chaos for most of that, and it was so tough on my anxiety to have my room that crazy disorganized. I was tripping on bags and clothes and boxes but I knew it was going to be worth it in the end. Although many a swear word was mumbled, uttered and yelled when my foot connected with a bag or a box or even an item of clothing over the duration of the week.

I had a general idea of what I wanted in my wardrobe, I found a few lists floating around and customized them to fit myself.

I made notes on things, what I thought would go together, lots of planning before even selecting items to keep in my capsule. I also made a wishlist at the back of my notebook for items that I can see would be a great addition but would take time to save for like a leather jacket, and leather wide calf boots these items would have to wait till I had the money for them.  I had an idea of what items I wanted to shop for to fill the gaps that I had in my winter capsule.

I made a list, and did some online looking. I knew I wanted a dashwash pair of good fitting jeans, a new pair of black ballet flats, an all rounder scarf, a few basic long singlets and a few neutral layering items. I had a small budget of around $250 to get these items so I needed to do a lot of hunting to get good prices. I wanted good quality clothes that would last, which with that budget some may say is hard, but I did it.

In my next post, I'll be showing you what made the cut, and the items I purchased to fill the gaps.
I hope this series is welcomed to my blog, it took me a very long time to get the guts to post this! I had talked myself out of it many many times.

Now to get used to photographing myself! if you have tips for that post a comment!
x Courtney