My capsule wardrobe is pretty much geared toward work/church: business casual, jeans only on Fridays, dressier shoes, etc.
On the weekends and some weekday evenings, I dress things down. I like to be comfy/practical and not have to worry about getting dirt/paint/food on my work wear as I dig for compost worms/make art with my kid/cook with my spouse.
Having a mini capsule for the weekends that’s mostly unrelated to work wear also gives me a chance to wear colors/types of clothing I love but that don’t really fit with my mix-n-match capsule. And since nobody’s keeping track of rigid rules here, a few things that do match my capsule aesthetic bleed into the work week on casual Fridays, for maximum usefulness/awesomeness.
Here are the main things I wear on the weekends and post-work evenings in cooler weather.
Land’s End oversized sage green roll neck sweater:
Thrifted from the Salvation Army. Comfiest ever, plus very chic with leggings when One is pregnant (which One is not). Looks stellar with a pendant necklace but that ain’t how I wore it here…this was a purely temperature-driven fashion decision.
Seafoamy green knit sweater, Old Navy; thrifted. A little bit shlumpy/odd length at work:
But so comfy and a great color, so I kept it for home:
…and cut small slits in the sideseams to let it fall more naturally:
Ombre H&M sweater, swapped from a friend. 
It was too itchy for her, but luckily not for me. I generally don’t wear black as it’s harsh on my skin tone, but the greys and whites soften this up a bit (and my toddler does not care if I look like death warmed over while we read together). Plus, it’s just the right length to pair with leggings.
I nabbed this stripey Mossimo number straight off the rack at the local Junior League thrift shop without even trying it on. It was a brand and size I knew typically fit me; it was 50% off day (aka $1.50 grand total); and my child was about to come unglued that we were still—horrors—shopping. Done. Happily it fit like a dream and goes perfectly underneath my lone hooded sweatshirt as a base layer, or singly when I work up a sweat but it’s still cold in our house. 
Bonus: these colors are not in my capsule nor are they my favorites in real life; but they are quite lovely, and they just spoke to me: wear something DIFFERENT! Even if it’s only on the weekends.
And now for your pieces that fit right into the capsule vibe without missing a beat:
Ol’ faithful plaid shirt right here—worn many a casual Friday and weekend. Seriously, this gets worn pretty much every. week. end. Why fix what ain’t broke?
Yikes, that mirror needed cleaning.
With camel blazer + brown suede boat shoes for Friday at the office:
Moving towards warmer weather, we have a 3/4-length sleeve Breton stripe tee from the Gap, perfect for when it’s just a tad too cool for short sleeves/no sleeves:
I pair with a blazer and jeans in cool-ish weather and frequently wear to work on Casual Friday, à la this very look ^^^. But it also works peachily with shorts or knee-length cutoffs as the weather warms.
Do you have a mini-wardrobe that’s just for weekends/evenings, or just for cocktail parties, or just for ladies’ night out? Or do you fit it all seamlessly into the same wardrobe because your style is just that consistent?
Scroll down to share, or click back to this post for some ideas on how to spread your style across your life so some pieces can play in all your wardrobes!
Like you, I have 2 wardrobes. Home & work. The home wardrobe consists of clothes that are out of fashion for work, like the cable knit zip hoodies from JC Penney that I bought in just about every color. They will be thrifted soon, but I can’t quite part with them as they are in great condition and I love the color during the light-reduced winter months.
Yes! I love colors but my winter work wardrobe is really muted–greys, off whites, muted blues, pale pink. I can amp it up/not match at home and noone cares :)
I like the idea of having a different color palette for home vs. work wardrobes (if those happen to be separate…I work at home so mine aren’t) and getting some variety that way. Smart idea!
I wonder if your purple striped henley could go underneath the seafoamy green sweater? Or would that be too warm for the climate where you are? Seems like that could be a fun juxtaposition of color and of pattern/texture.
I recently found your blog via The Vivienne Files I think and am really enjoying it!
Sarah,
So glad you found the blog and are enjoying it! Thanks for commenting.
I did the extra color palette thing with my maternity wardrobe a few years back just by default–I happened to find a whole different set of colors as I was thrifting/consigning and thought “why not?”
Do you wrestle with variety having a unified wardrobe, or do you just have enough different items/colors/etc. that you don’t get bored?
I like the pattern/texture/color juxtaposition idea—it will be 70 F here today, though, so the time for trying it this season may be past. Next year, though!!
“Do you wrestle with variety having a unified wardrobe, or do you just have enough different items/colors/etc. that you don’t get bored?”
Well, I guess I have more items/colors/etc. so as not to get bored. And for the past year or so I have been trying to organize seasonal “capsules” with different color palettes so as not to get overwhelmed. This is still very much a work in progress. I can see that I have more items in these seasonal capsules than I really need (or even, more than is really effective), but I still struggle to create the level of variety in outfits that I seem to want.
It strikes me that an advantage of having separate work vs. weekend wardrobes is that you are actually switching “modes”/capsules twice a week, and that probably creates a feeling of a certain degree of in and of itself!
Anyway, like I said, still working on this. I actually think I am at the cusp of a breakthrough of sorts but I need to get a few hours to devote to working this out. We’ll see!
Sarah, I like the idea of different color palettes for different seasons to get variety…I tend to do that for warmer/cooler seasons just to change things up and reflect the season a little more.
Accessories provide some great variety for me–do you like to wear scarves/jewelry/shoes that can help change things up?
We’d love to see/hear about it when the breakthrough comes…funny how this takes more time to work out on the front end, in order to take less time shopping/deciding/dressing once we’re happy with the mix we have!