Capsule Wardrobe Part 4: Sewing For Your Lifestyle

It's all very well thinking through a few style guidelines to do with what shapes look good on your body. But let us be honest here, we aren't all living a lifestyle of a celebrity. One where we one of our main aims with clothes is to look good and extend our personal 'brand' through our fashion choices. Most of us have other factors to consider when we make (or buy) our clothes.

For instance, you're a school teacher. On your feet a lot, bending down regularly and sticky hands follow you around all day. Full skirts maybe your thing but not so good in the workplace.

For instance, you're a stay at home mum who spends most of your time crawling around on the floor playing with your toddler or cleaning up after them. Not to mention needing momentary boob access to feed your screaming baby so dresses are off the list at the moment.

For instance, you have about 5 minutes to get dress in the morning before you rush off to catch a train. The idea of a capsule wardrobe is very appealing and you know that pencil skirts are great for your figure but they just don't allow you to run fast enough to get that train.

Not exactly glamtastic all day every day. But that's life. At least for us normal people.*

So you've got some ideas about what colours to wear and what styles look good but it'd clearly important to think about which clothes will actually be useful in your wardrobe, otherwise you're talking about making a bunch of stuff that never gets worn which defeats the point of what we were aiming for.

Have a think about your lifestyle. Are you outside all day? Do you need to look smart for work? Do you do lots of physical activity in your typical day? Do you mostly dress in casual clothes?

For me life should all be about the casual. To be honest I don't really enjoy wearing really casual clothes. Jeans, t-shirt and jumper just don't really do it for me. I try to smarten it up a little by either wearing a skirt with my t-shirt or a slightly more fancy top with my jeans. This is actually a great way to approach the capsule wardrobe. Lot's of separates, some smart and some casual, some plain and some patterned so you can mix them all up to get a casual outfit when you fancy and a smarter one when you need it.

Does your lifestyle require more casual or smart? This is the crux of the matter when we talk about sewing for your lifestyle. Take a look at your colour palette and your shape guidelines and see if you need to tweak it at all to make it more or less smart. Or simply make a note of how often you think you can keep it casual and how often you need to make more of an effort. This ratio should help you work out what ratio of clothes to sew.

Next Tuesday I am going to go through what I have in my capsule wardrobe already and what I plan on sewing next. I'll also be talking about some ideas for staples for your wardrobe and some ideas for how to fancy it up and make it more interesting.

Plus I've been making a christmas dress and it's ready to show you so keep your eyes peeled for that. Zoe xx

*I just want to point out that obviously celebrities are normal people. The important thing to remember is that we shouldn't compare ourselves to people that have stylists making them look good whenever they're making a public appearance. I have never had a stylist in my life.