“Opening up your closet should be like arriving at a really good party where everyone you see is someone you like” ~Amy Collins

Today, I want to dive deeper into creating your Confident Closet, by defining your essentials. Your Confident Closet is a curated wardrobe that contains essentials, and additional accent pieces. All your essentials are versatile, timeless items that reflect your style. These items are easy to mix and match, and not limited to either casual or professional uses. In this blog post, I will hand out some tools to help curate your Confident Closet by defining your essentials.

Curating starts with decluttering your wardrobe, which leaves us with only the items we love and need. After that, we take the time to look at the garments in our closets by analyzing and defining the fabrics, colors, and silhouettes in your closet. And today we are dissecting that information to define your essentials. Get your notebook out again today – we’re going to get closer to your Confident Closet! 

Essentials in your Confident Closet
So what are the essentials? Imagine your entire wardrobe. Most likely, you are able to identify some items as your favorites. But it might get a bit more blurry when I ask you to define the rest of your closet. Let me try to help you with examples. I could divide my wardrobe basically into 3 parts;

1. Items that I always wear. These are the core items – my favorite pieces that are easy to combine. Some examples of these items are an ecru linen T-shirt, a blue tank top, and denim shorts.
2. Clothes that are the base of my closet. These are the essentials – they form the base of many outfits, and cover the biggest part of my closet. An example is a jumpsuit. I love this item, but due to the climate, I cannot wear this item every day.
3. Pieces that I don’t wear often and are harder to combine. These are the accent pieces – they jazz up an outfit and are slightly different from the essentials and core in terms of color, fit, and/or fabric. An example is a silk knitted shorts that are not easy to combine and the fabric needs some extra care.

Envision these categories as circles, where the core is the heart of it all, surrounded by the essentials and with the accent pieces as the outer circle.

Versatile garments
You shouldn’t have an overload of items that are limited to either weekends or work. Essentially, defining your essentials takes away the stress of making a ton of decisions when you’re in front of your closet and when shopping. 

The goal is to have professional trousers for work that are also easy to combine casually with a white T-shirt, a sweater, and sneakers. When you look for the perfect jeans, it should also be possible to wear them with smart loafers and a nice silk top or blouse that you normally only would define as professional clothes. What items do you have that you can only wear to work? 

I want to encourage you to do less shopping and make more intentional purchases

Values
Because the essentials cover more than half of your closet (this could differentiate based on your Style Personality), it is of essence that these garments reflect your values and lifestyle. These garments are curated in a way that you don’t have to invest in new clothing every season. The items feel just as relevant this year as they did last year. This means more money for things that actually add value to your life. I want to encourage you to do less shopping and make more intentional purchases, as this leads to a smaller closet with more space for things that matter. For me, that means going out for nice dinners and traveling. What adds value to your life? Paying off student loans, getting your nails done, going out with friends?

How to define the essentials
So now we get to the good stuff. The essentials contain mostly timeless pieces that reflect your style in fabrics, colors, and fits. The fit on your body and the fabrics on your skin should make you feel fantastic, and the color should help you look good. It’s okay to have multiple items in one category, compared to another. For example, I have 4 pairs of jeans as essentials, because each one makes me feel different. They’re all different in fit, fabric, and color. One pair of jeans I like to wear when going out, another I always bring with me for traveling. In contrast, I don’t consider any of my dresses as essentials. It will all balance out quite naturally. 

Number of essentials
The reason why defining your essentials is of importance, is because these items are easy to mix and match and are not limited to either casual or professional. This will only work when you have enough items to rotate with. This is, in my experience, very personal and I cannot give you a solid number to follow. It is also different per Style Personality, as some personalities have almost their whole wardrobe as essentials, and for others, it can mean that their closet consists of close to half of seasonal and accent items.

There are many websites that talk about a Capsule Wardrobe, or a certain number of items that are enough for you to rotate with. I have never tried such things, as I have a curated wardrobe with only things I love and need, and I’m convinced that this is sufficient. This does not mean I will never try it, and once I do, I will share that on that on the Biekaleidoscope journal.

What about the items that are not core, but you do want to keep in your closet?
There will be additional styles that you keep as seasonal styles or accent pieces. These are items that you don’t wear as much as the core, but you love all of them. The traditional balance between essentials and accent items is a 70% core to a 30% accent wardrobe.

Did you ever think of your all-time favorite item as a fundamental of your wardrobe?

Thank you for reading.
We’re in this together.
~