Create a Capsule Wardrobe – 10 x 10 – Marie Kondo “Spark Joy” Wardrobe

With the recent success of Project 333 featured in the Minimilists Netflix documentary and with the sudden huge hit of “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo“, we all know we should only keep things that spark joy in our life and that starts with our clothes.

Having recently been inspired myself after watching the show, I decided to tackle my clothes to see if doing something as simple as removing clutter and items that don’t spark joy would really make a difference.

I had been on a process leading up to my recent book writing where my mindset was really tested to see if I indeed needed all the “stuff” in my life.

Clothing is one of the easiest places to see what you truly need, so you can move up to harder decisions as time goes on.

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Know the style you want as a goal

Like anything, sometimes we can become too used to wearing the same items over and over – and have endless items that we know in our heart don’t look right or make us feel good.

It is so obvious but often we have a daily style but without any thought behind it.

Sometimes it is called “This is clean” and sometimes it is called “I tried to make an effort”.

What I loved most about discovering the “10 x 10” Challenge run by WhatKatysaid was it allowed me to test out for 10 days a capsule based wardrobe of my choosing, and really see what clothing made me light up and feel confident.

For this, I actually picked up a copy of a great book that seemed to mention all the key style items I loved – think French Classic – and found it inspiring to get the inspirational clothing combinations from it.

I would say if you are unsure of what you want your style to be, to then look for key pieces to create it, start with a picture of an outfit you love on yourself or someone else.

Then try to find similar outfits perhaps on Pinterest and such websites, and save the photos.

Very soon you will start to see your key looks and the looks that make you feel great.

Pick your 10 items with purpose

For 10 days, you wear just 10 items. That includes tops, bottoms, dresses, coats and shoes.

It does not include accessories such as bags, hats and scarves so you can change up the outfits as much as you like with those.

By mixing and matching, you can create in theory up to hundreds of different combinations of outfits but we need to make sure the key pieces fit in with the planned activities for those days ahead.

For example if you have work or busy school days, you will need to make sure you have suitable items to cover you for those type of events.

What did I pick then for my 10 x 10 Challenge days?

For my 10 items I selected:

• Black Jeans
• Blue Jeans
• High wedge boots
• Flat “Gucci style” shoes
• White shirt
• Black Silky Tshirt
• Leather Jacket
• Black shirt
• Bomber Jacket
• Striped V Neck Tshirt

My ten days include Work from home days, three days in the office (smart casual) and then weekend days with my boys.

I felt that the black jeans could offer me enough smart choices for the office, but with the balance of smarter tops to allow the formal work appearance I like.

What did I learn about my style?

Having already got rid of approximately 80% of my clothing before I took part in this challenge, I felt so inspired by my efforts to commit and see the 10 days through without too much hard ship.

I loved all my outfit choices, and really it made the point quite clear that it is more important to have clothes we love rather than quantity.

I have a good few more clothing items in my wardrobe, as certainly I wouldn’t want to be restricted every week to limited choices, but it did make me appreciate the clothing I had to make me feel good for the events I had planned.

If I had more formal events to attend, I would have struggle to find a suitable outfit but that is where the balance comes in to borrow or buy pieces that allow for multi-event use.

The outcome

I absolutely loved this challenge as it made me think “outside the box” and have fun each day with my clothing to mix up my style.  Every day seemed easily to get dressed as I had picked items that worked well together in whatever combination I needed, but also items I loved.

I found that towards the end of the 10 outfits though I felt I might have needed to repeat, but then I just used my jackets as options to mix up the looks.

It made me realise how little of a wardrobe we might actually need to get through most of our events in life such as work, home life and weekends – and really look at the clothing I am keeping in my wardrobe and using up space.

This is definitely a challenge I could see myself doing again, and using it as the basis for a complete wardrobe revamp – limiting myself to perhaps the 30 or even 40 items to see me through.

A great challenge and so glad I did this!

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