In honor of Memorial Day yesterday, the unofficial start of summer in the good ol’ US of A, I give you my summer wardrobe additions.
My summer (work) capsule wardrobe is basically my spring capsule wardrobe; it’s pretty air-conditioned at work, so while I will start wearing my short sleeve pieces and skirts more, most everything else will stay in rotation.
I have:
- made a few swaps out (buh bye sheer tops – more on that Thursday; long-sleeved Land’s End dress will also be kept but go out of rotation)
- added a few new-to-me pieces (white denim jacket; the popover tunic that reincarnated as a shirt dress),
- and “borrowed” one thing from the casual side of my wardrobe (more on that below) – this teal leopard print top by s. Oliver:
I’d previously been wearing this only on evenings and weekends but it made its sneaky way into my work wardrobe as a fun pop of color. I love the hue, the t-shirt hem at the bottom, and that it’s playful but still gives me good coverage. (Not a fan of showing midriff at work.)
Another planned swap out: my navy Tahari slim pants. I love your sassy little slits at the hem and how classy you make me look, navy pants, but you pick up fuzz and cat hair endlessly and you are just a bit too dark for these hot + sunny days. Also I can’t tuck anything into you because your side zipper doesn’t go all the way up and that’s a little awkward.
You may recall my longing for cerulean khakis; I ordered these babies from ThredUp to replace the navy pants and, if all goes well, they’ll make their debut next week:
Not part of my work wardrobe, but definitely on repeat for evenings/weekends – these two shirts:
By Mossimo – love the colors, fits great, fun v-neck
No label, an ironic contribution to the words-on-shirts trend (is it even still a trend? Don’t care, I’m doing it ironically). Pretty sure I had a French award in junior high with this phrase on it; that plus the leopard sealed the deal.
…along with this romper by Lux you may recall from last summer:
…and these shorts:
American Eagle, Bill Blass, Arden B.
This size of mini-capsule worked last summer to get me through the hot weather; I simply swapped out the tees to give myself some variety. (I also wear a couple of my “work” tops with my casual shorts on the weekends.)
Do you come up with a dramatically different wardrobe for summer, or is more like “spring plus”? Can you share items between your casual and work wardrobes or are they way too different? Scroll down to share!
Fingers crossed that the blue chinos work out! This is a great collection of items — very colorful and fun, but I can see how most everything works together.
My spring wardrobe is basically “winter plus” — it’s my summer wardrobe that’s totally different! That’s probably a function of the difference in climate between the South where you are and the Pacific Northwest where I am.
I also confess that summer is the season when it’s most difficult for me to stick to the capsule wardrobe concept. So many pretty sundresses about! As a thrifter in Seattle it’s especially difficult to be disciplined about summer clothes — precisely because our summers are so short and temperate, there’s a lot of warm-weather clothing in really good condition available. In my first several years of thrifting I really ended up with way too many summer clothes for this reason. I’ve pared things down somewhat now, but I admit that my summer “capsule” is definitely on the loose side. I rationalize that warm-weather clothes tend to be shorter-lived (lighter/more delicate fabrications, and more exposure to sweat/sunscreen/etc.), so I keep the things I really love around even though they add up to more things than I really need.