How to build a professional women’s capsule wardrobe? First, let’s define what a capsule wardrobe is. Then let’s discuss what is professional. Then we will discuss how to create a professional women’s capsule wardrobe, provide you with a checklist, as well as a ready to buy capsule wardrobe to simplify life.
If you’re only interested in shopping our ready to buy capsule wardrobes, then scroll all the way down. We have featured an affordable professional women’s capsule wardrobe and an executive capsule wardrobe for women.
What is a Capsule Wardrobe for Women?
A capsule wardrobe is basically a woman’s wardrobe that mixes and matches easily to create multiple outfits using the same pieces of clothing. Said another way, a capsule wardrobe is comprised of interchangeable items that easily work together to create a variety of outfits – ideally to simplify your wardrobe and simplify your life.
A capsule wardrobe is beneficial to create when:
- You don’t want to spend a lot of money on clothing
- You want to maximize all the pieces within your wardrobe
- You would prefer a minimalistic wardrobe where you utilize all the pieces in your wardrobe
- You value practicality and functionality in your wardrobe
- Or you’re willing to invest in high-quality pieces for a wardrobe so that you spend less time shopping yet still look good
Women’s capsule wardrobes are ideal to create when you are just starting your professional career and you want to learn how to build a foundational wardrobe that you can expand upon in the future.
A capsule wardrobe for women isn’t for the woman who loves fashion. If you love trends and fashion you may have multiple different types of capsule wardrobes in your closet because you like variety in your closet.
Capsule wardrobes are ideal for professional women because it takes the guesswork out of what to wear to the office or what to wear to work when working from home.
What is a Professional Wardrobe for Women?
Professional wardrobes are usually built around structured pieces. The clothing cuts are generally straight. Some might say that the clothing cuts look boxier.
Professional wardrobes for women are typically also built around dark colors. Usually, you select dark neutral colors such as black, charcoal gray, or navy. For summer, you may see colors like camel, beige, and white. However other dark colors may include burgundy, chocolate brown, olive green and forest green when building a professional capsule wardrobe.
These days you will see a variety of professional clothing made of stretchy yet straight silhouettes to accommodate weight gain and foster comfort. So rather than seeing wool suits in a store, you may find a blazer or trousers made of a variety of synthetic fabrics such as modal, rayon, or neoprene, which could actually be constructed from recycled fabrics to promote sustainable fashion. Moreover, some dress pants and skirts now have elastic waist bands.
Professional wardrobes usually don’t have a lot of details to them. The patterns are simple and most of the time a women’s professional capsule wardrobe is created with solid colors. Therefore, if you are attracted to bows, ruffles, grommets, rivets, spikes, or anything that is edgy, these items are not considered professional-looking attire.
When in doubt about creating a professional wardrobe or outfit, boring is better, or plain is better.
A professional wardrobe should be practical rather than fashionable. Trending items such as crop tops, leggings or stirrups, leather skirts, or leather shorts are typically not found in a professional wardrobe unless you work in a creative industry.
Professional wardrobes for women generally don’t look sexy. Unless it’s summer, you should refrain from wearing sleeveless dresses unless you wear a sweater or a blazer on top of the sleeveless dress while in the office. However short sleeve dresses are becoming more acceptable in the workplace and ideally, the hemline of the dress or skirt is just above the knee or longer. Wear this to work with a trench coat and heels for a professional look.
When we talk about being sexy, you want to avoid wearing low-cut shirts, see-through shirts, and very short skirts and dresses. So, think of it this way, the less skin that you show the more professional you look.
However, as a caveat, if you are a relatively slender or a fit woman, body-conscious dresses are still considered professional if they are not skintight, they have sleeves, and the hemline of the dress goes to the knee. When we talk about body-conscious dresses, we are referring to dresses that are formfitting to the body, or fitted dresses, which is not the same as skintight fitting to the body.
So think of it this way, the dresses that you would wear to go nightclubbing are not appropriate as professional attire.
How Do You Build a Professional Women’s Capsule Wardrobe?
Here’s our capsule wardrobe formula. It’s best to build a professional women’s capsule wardrobe in neutral colors and classic styles.
Classic styles can be defined as clothing that doesn’t have a lot of details to them. The patterns are simple and most of the time a professional wardrobe is created with solid colors.
So when creating your professional women’s capsule wardrobe, select a few of your favorite dark colors as the framework to building your capsule wardrobe.
For example, you may create a capsule wardrobe from black, charcoal gray, and navy. These colors vary by person according to your personal coloring and preferences. Consider getting an online color analysis assessment for US$49.97 to find out your best colors. However, to keep it simple, we are going to show you how to create a capsule wardrobe from black, charcoal gray, and navy.
Once you’ve selected your color scheme, pick essential items such as a blazer, skirt, trousers, and a dress in the same fabric and the same color.
The great thing about neutral colors is that you can mix and match them together.
Therefore pick these essential items in several neutral colors and mix and match them together.
What color tops should you wear with these neutral capsule wardrobe essential items?
As image consultants and personal stylists, we would recommend mixing the dark neutral essential items with light-colored neutral tops in white, beige, and light blue.
After you’ve read all these things you might think that the outfits sound and look relatively boring. However, as we said earlier, when it comes to a professional wardrobe boring is better.
This article is intended for those who have just graduated from college or just obtained their MBA and are looking to build the framework of their professional wardrobe. However, we will also include a ready to buy executive capsule wardrobe for seasoned female professionals below.
Capsule wardrobes are a popular way to build a framework for a professional wardrobe as these are the essential items that every professional wardrobe needs.
How much should you spend for a professional women’s capsule wardrobe?
That entirely depends on your income, how much you’re willing to spend per item, and how picky you are about your clothing.
Typically the more money you spend, the higher the quality of the garment. Sometimes more delicate fabrics cost more however they are not as durable.
Below we have included some ready to buy capsule wardrobes to build your professional attire. Feel free to click and shop the images as we have selected these items according to affordability, functionality, and practicality. Click on the “i” in the upper right hand corner of the image for more information if you’re reading this on mobile. The items have been laid out to easily mix and match with each other.
Disclosure: When you click on the images within the post and purchase any items, we may earn a nominal commission at no additional cost to you, which helps support the Global Image Group blog and its quality content.
We have also created a ready to buy capsule wardrobe for the female executive – an executive capsule wardrobe.
since these pieces are all in the same color scheme you can mix and match the pieces together aside from the pinstriped trousers. and yes, you can mix different scales of pinstripes together as we’ve shown it here. both the bags are classics investment pieces therefore they mix and match with all outfits. thanks for shopping the blog!
The following is an essential work capsule wardrobe checklist
- Blazer
- Dress
- Skirt
- Trousers
Collect these items in 3 neutral colors. For example: black, charcoal gray, and navy.
Add items these to your professional capsule wardrobe essential items:
- Dressed up t-shirts in quality fabric – aka. shells
- Camisoles or tank sweaters to wear under blazers
- Basic knit tops to wear under blazers – they can be short sleeve or long sleeve
- Silk or polyester button-down shirts in light colors
Allow for some space between your skin and the clothing so that you feel comfortable and your clothing can still fit you if you gain 10 pounds from working all the time.
If an item of clothing is something you would sleep in, wear to the gym, or wear to lounge around the house with your family, it’s probably not professional. If it’s trendy, it’s probably not professional.
However, in 2021 due to the pandemic more people have been working from home or working remotely. Therefore, individuals are opting for matching sets from the jacket, top, skirt, and pants in comfortable fabrics. These jackets also look like sweater jackets. They can be long or short sweater jackets, combined with knit tops, skirts, and pants. So, it’s easy to build work-from-home capsule wardrobes with matching sets as this is the basis for creating a capsule wardrobe.
How many pieces should be in a professional women’s capsule wardrobe?
When you conduct a closet cleanout, you can capsule a female wardrobe. Once you detox your closet, determine which items are keepers and see how many pieces you have. Ask yourself if they are classic and basic in style. If the answer is yes, then it should be included in the number of pieces to create your capsule wardrobe. Starting with 24 – 36 pieces is a good base for a women’s capsule wardrobe and then extend it to 48 pieces. Your women’s capsule wardrobe should include clothing, accessories, and shoes.
If you’d like help to build a personalized professional women’s capsule wardrobe that goes beyond basic and classic styles, work with our online personal stylists and online personal shoppers.
Ready to work with an image consultant to build a professional capsule wardrobe?
We look forward to working with you!
YOUR executive image consultant & virtual STYLIST
