- It feels like forever since I've sat down and filmed.
I feel like that's how I feel every time,
but specifically this time as well.
For a year now, I have been doing a capsule wardrobe,
which means for those of you who do not know
that I have a kind of core wardrobe.
And every season I exchange some pieces in and out.
I put obviously some under my bed.
I save them for years to come,
and I try and do seasonal changes
that are effective and minimize my wastage.
I'll leave some links that explain that
in a much better way than I do, but basically,
I try and minimize how much I buy because I love to shop,
by kind of having a cyclical, long-standing wardrobe.
I personally don't stick to a particular number of pieces.
I just try to keep it reasonable.
So for me that's basically everything fits on one rail.
Every season, I take a look at what I've got,
and I reorganize it.
I get everything out and put it on my bed,
which you're gonna see (laughs),
and then I take a look at what I'm definitely including,
what I'm not including again,
what's too old, decrepit, beaten up, shrunk in the wash,
whatever, that I can't use anymore,
and then I evaluate what I need to buy as well.
Sometimes that will be nothing.
Sometimes that will be four or five pieces, if that.
Sometimes that might be a little bit more.
I'm gonna give you a bit of fair warning now,
this whole autumn capsule wardrobe
is one of those little bit mores.
So I'm gonna start with a little review
of what I've learned over the year of capsule wardrobing,
which hopefully will be useful to some people.
Then I'm gonna talk about my overhaul, this time around,
as in getting everything out of under my bed,
out of my drawers, out of my wardrobe,
organizing everything, and then I'll show you
the finished product so far,
and discuss what I'm going to hopefully purchase.
And then I'm gonna talk you through
some of the big mistakes I've made this year, which I found,
which is gonna be guided by my pile of things
I've giving to the charity shop.
It's only about six items,
but I figured it'd be nice to talk you through that.
So as you might be able to tell, my voice is gone.
It's so annoying.
When it goes, I just always get laryngitis,
so it if goes, it'll go for, like, a week and a half.
Today, I am drinking a cup of coffee
with a teaspoon of sugar and some coconut milk.
It's very good.
There will be another video coming later in the month,
I think maybe in a week or so, where I talk you through
my capsule wardrobe whole for autumn,
so that bits I've picked out, basically.
So you have that to look forward to.
Okay, let's get started.
Let's talk about, like, the experience so far.
September 2017, I started my capsule wardrobe,
which meant getting everything out onto my bed,
again, going through everything,
and realizing what I did have, what I didn't have, etcetera.
I'm one of those people
that thinks quite a lot about her purchases,
but then makes really dumb, sporadic purchases.
I'm not a shopping addict, I don't do huge shops,
or not return things or anything like that,
but I'm kind of afraid, a lot of the time, to buy things
and then often regret things when I do.
I thought, you know what,
I think this system makes way more sense to me,
and also curbs these sporadic purchases
that I make that are stupid.
As well, it's really quite hard to invest
in sustainable clothing unless you're at a certain income,
and at that time I wasn't at a certain income,
so I thought, well, the most effective thing I can do
is limit how much fast fashion I buy,
which in my job is really important
because we do buy a lot of fast fashion.
I'm expected to look relatively different in every video.
I go to a lot of events, a lot of evening things,
I feel like there's a bit of pressure on us
to fast fashion and buy a lot.
So when I started last year I just had a mess of a wardrobe.
Nothing really went together.
I just lived in this one pair of jeans.
I kind of knew where I was going with my style,
but I didn't have a strong idea or strong direction.
So I cleared a lot of things out.
I had to donate to my sister, actually,
this gorgeous pink fur coat I bought,
but I do not wear a pink fur coat ever,
that's so out of my style, completely out,
and these bright pink shoes,
I just had a lot of pink in there that I didn't ever wear
because bright pinks and baby pinks are not my thing.
I realized also I had no strong basics.
So I bought some of those, and the capsule wardrobe started.
And since then it's been a process of trial and error.
And I think this is the first wardrobe
where I'm actually starting
to have a good sense of what my style is,
and a good sense of what's worth buying,
what's not worthy buying, maybe,
or finding an alternative for what should be cheap,
what should be expensive.
So autumn and winter, whilst quite shaky on the ground,
were not too bad.
Spring, fine, it's basically winter here during spring.
Summer, what's the word, knocked me for six?
Because I'm not used to dressing for summer.
I have always been quite body self-conscious,
body conscious and self-conscious,
and I find dressing for summer quite difficult,
so I didn't really own any summery clothes at all,
let alone things I felt comfortable in,
and as you know if you've lived in England,
we had a massive heat wave all summer pretty much,
well, for like at least two months of it,
so I had to suddenly purchase a bunch of summery items,
things that would get me through things like festivals,
days out where I'd be in the sun all day,
and that kind of thing,
so I now have some summer bits
that are quite random but I quite like,
and then we roll back around to autumn.
Overall I'm really enjoying the capsule wardrobe thing.
I don't see myself giving it up any time soon,
but I think this year's focus
is on buying the right kind of things to put back in it,
because there's some things that I bought back in autumn,
and I'm now giving away,
or I bought back in spring and I'm now giving away
because I didn't buy the right kind of thing,
and I'll explain that more in a sec.
So this time around, I went to clear out my wardrobe.
I am thinking for this autumn,
this is gonna be a mood board right here.
I'm really feeling kind of muted, neutral colors.
I love my black, my white, my monochrome;
that's been the staple of my wardrobe for the past year,
and pretty much always has been.
I love my black, white and gray, various shades,
but I want to include more neutrals, more camels,
more muted mink colors, that kind of brown spectrum.
And then on top of that, obviously like everyone else,
I love leopard print.
I wanted one or two leopard print things in my wardrobe.
And something to think about for winter,
which I'm not focusing on right now
but if it comes up I'll get something, is sparkly stuff.
I love sparkles (laughs).
I really love things that are a little bit kitsch
and a little bit sparkly,
but are also fit into this monochrome, muted palette.
I've got my eye out for stuff like that,
but I'm not necessarily trying to integrate it
at this point in time;
I think it's a bit early for glitter and sparkles.
So I emptied everything out, everything.
Even stuff I knew was definitely not gonna be put back
in the wardrobe this time around, and then I went to work.
I put away all of my summer clothes,
'cause they were also in kind of random, brasive colors,
'cause I do wear those,
but they're kind of standalone pieces,
if that makes any sense.
And then we have my beautiful, complete wardrobe.
Just a little note: I don't keep my coats
or my shoes in there.
It's just jumpers, tops, bottoms, and dresses or places.
This is the first time I've been able
to move my wardrobe around so it actually works for me,
and I'm so happy with the layout, with the shelf at the top,
I just think it's great.
I also put away some stuff
that was potentially usable for this season
but I kind of want to save and preserve
so that they last longer,
so there's occasionally stuff that I'll put away,
like a skirt that could suit the season,
but I really want it to last six years, not four,
so I try and not have it out for two seasons.
So let's talk about the things that are going to charity
or to friends or family because they aren't quite right,
and let me explain what happened with them.
So I have learned not to buy stretch bodycon things.
You may notice in this gorgeous polo neck dress,
from Urban Outfitters, I believe,
that there is still the tag in it.
That's because I never wore it, because shockingly enough,
I'm not that comfortable in a skintight bodycon outfit,
and I needed to remember that.
Now I know, this won't be purchased again (laughs).
I optimistically kept it in my wardrobe for a whole year
in the hopes that one day I'd wanna wear it on a night out.
It was of course a sporadic, random purchase
when I was worried about something to wear
for an evening event, but it's not for me, folks,
so if anyone wants a size 10,
and looking for a bodycon dress, let me know.
This is a sad one, but this is important.
As you may remember, this is a jumper I wore
in a Get Ready With Me last year,
and I wore for pretty much the whole winter.
I've learnt from this not to buy cheap, cheap knit-ware.
It's from Zara, and it is so worn, it is so bubbly.
It's misshapen, it's really itchy around the neck now.
And that's because I over-wore it, basically,
and it's cheap knit-ware,
so I've learned from this to not buy really cheap knit-ware,
because it just doesn't have the lasting power,
and I'll end up spending exactly as much as I would have
on one nice quality item on five bad ones.
As I mentioned before, our summer came all at once,
it was really hot and intense,
so I had to buy a couple of bits
that would just get me through those months,
so this was one thing I picked up.
This is again from Urban Outfitters.
It's really nice, I think it's lovely.
It's this little crop top, silky,
again it's in this really nice...
I love these muted neutral colors.
But I got no wear out of it because I'm self-conscious
about my arms, the tops of my arms.
I'm never gonna wear strappy tops, so I need to remember
the things that I am happy to push myself with
when it comes to body confidence and comfort,
and the times where it just doesn't necessarily make sense,
and I should just leave that piece be.
Again, another example of cheap stuff
not surviving my wardrobe,
I, on the recommendation of my friend Bethan,
who gets incredible stuff from there,
bought some bits from Yes Style, in spring.
I bought this shirt, every time I've washed it,
it shrunk and shrunk and shrunk,
and now it is just like half the size it was when I got it,
and it doesn't suit me anymore.
The arms are too tight, and it's kind of too short,
and I wanted a really loose baggy thing when I bought it,
so unfortunately this is going to the charity shop.
It's a shame, again, I've worn it maybe 10 to 20 times,
and it just hasn't gone the distance.
And the exact same happened
to the other Yes Style shirt that I ordered,
so again, I would say err on the side of caution
if you are planning to create a capsule wardrobe,
where you wear a lot of the things like tops
that get sweaty multiple times,
and wash them multiple times,
maybe don't get them from those places that are quite cheap.
I say that, but some things like t-shirts
will last me forever, like the Brandy Novel t-shirts,
I've had them for four or five years, they last forever.
This makes me sad,
but I need to accept when things don't fit me.
This pinafore dress, you may remember, I've worn it loads.
I fought valiantly to make it a part of my wardrobe,
and I wear it a lot; it just doesn't fit me.
It does not fit over my bum, and I wouldn't accept it.
I need to size up,
and I need to accept when I need to size up.
Sadly, you are going to the charity shop,
but you will be dearly missed.
Finally there is this top here.
It is the silky one that, again it's from Zara,
and I bought it on a whim 'cause I actually saw my flatmate,
Jamaica, wearing something similar,
and I just thought it would look so good.
So I just went into Zara and bought it for a night out.
You'll notice that's a theme here (laughs).
Buy things on a whim.
But this pattern, and this color, are just not me at all.
I don't know why I bought it.
I don't like this color, I just don't.
I think I had this idea in my head
that it would go with my nights,
which are kind of a similar color,
but one, it doesn't go with the nights,
and two, I like them just with a plain outfit.
I wouldn't want to add more green.
And yeah, obviously it got hardly any wear,
so this will find a new home.
I really like very specific patterns and colors,
so if I'm gonna invest in something like that,
I need to follow guidelines
from my Pinterest and my Instagram.
Don't go around buying this strange,
fake Japanese flower print when you're not gonna wear it.
Those are my lessons learned
from a whole year of capsule wardrobing.
I hope you can see why those items are going to charity.
Overall I think I've done all right.
That's all I'm giving away in a years' worth of stuff.
So that's, I think that's quite good,
and for those of you that don't know,
charity shops can accept items that they can't resell
for, let's say they're not in good enough quality
for the charity shop, and they can still donate them to,
I think fabric banks, and get money for that.
Source is, I used to work in a charity shop.
So finally, let's talk about the things
I'm hoping to add to my autumn capsule wardrobe for 2018.
I have my trusty bullet journal here.
Oh, the back's really dirty.
The first thing I noticed is I don't have quite enough tops,
and specifically, the things
that I'm really comfortable wearing,
which are high neck or polo neck tops, I love those,
that are kind of keep you warm, very practical,
and then also nice tops.
I have mainly t-shirts and plain shirts.
I do not have anything that makes me excited
to put it on in the morning.
I think I need one or two of those.
Second thing is a lighter coat or jacket,
because at the moment, I have my big, heavy black one.
I also have a big, heavier nude kind of colored one,
which I bought really recently, but I've left in Barcelona.
Again, that's quite heavy, it's a big coat.
I feel like I need a jacket of some kind,
or maybe a shoe with a coat,
one that can go on nights out with me
and multitask as a lighter jacket.
So, yeah, still stuck on that.
That might not happen 'til winter,
but I'd really like something that fills that void.
Third thing is a bag that I can use
as an everyday smaller bag.
I was using my bright yellow Kanken,
that's now gone into storage, ready for next year,
or next summer because it is bright, bright, bright yellow.
Maybe like a small backpack, I'm not too sure.
Fourth is a pair of really basic slightly heeled boots.
I've wanted these as long as I've had feet.
I've never found any that suit my feet,
so I think this year I'm gonna continue my quest
to find a pair of basic black boots.
As you may know, my Doc Martens just don't fit right,
and they're so deeply uncomfortable.
I feel like I need a really neat, nice version of that
to wear to, like, meetings and stuff.
So, still on the hunt for those.
And then I think this is the fifth or the sixth one.
I would like some kind of jumpsuit or boiler suit
because I love them, I think they're great,
and they'd kind of taken the place of what you would do,
like Dungarees in the summer,
you could do a boiler suit in the winter.
I just think they're really cool.
So that's just for something I want that I think looks nice.
I should also add,
I've already added one or two things to the wardrobe.
They will appear in the capsule wardrobe whole video,
so they're kind of already sitting there,
so this is just kind of the final, final bits,
if I even need them.
So yes, that is my awesome capsule wardrobe review so far.
Thank you so much for watching.
I hope you enjoyed it.
If you did, please subscribe if you're not already.
And like the video as well because I like likes, thank you.
And yeah, thanks again for watching.
I will see you in my next video.
Ooh, that light went weird.