A Vintage Inspired Travel Friendly Mini Capsule Wardrobe.

You may or may not have read somewhere along the way in my blog that my day job is being a Travel Agent. I really enjoy my work, as I can honestly say I learn new things every day, and I don't think I will ever know everything there is to know about every destination, so there will always be more to learn, which keeps the days interesting. Part of my Job is to travel and experience destinations for myself, and to that end, I often get educational trips offered to me at heavily discounted rates.

The few trips I did last year really made me realise the need for comfortable, lightweight, wrinkle resistant clothing, that still looked somewhat professional. As most of my current me-made wardrobe does not fall into this category (being mostly full skirts and easy to wrinkle cottons) I have decided to make my own Vintage Inspired Mini Capsule Wardrobe. Before my trips overseas, I researched capsule wardrobes and tried my best using existing store bought clothing, This time I have tried to find capsule wardrobes a little bit closer to what I am hoping to produce for myself.

Like this Nautical one from Polyvore

Or this Retro one from Polyvore

A more detailed Capsule Wardrobe

This one is a bit closer to the size capsule I will be making,
but with a bit more versatility in seperates
(only one pair of pants, really?)

Here's one pretty close to what I'm going for.

A lot of you will have no doubt heard about Lucky Lucille's VIFPMCW challenge, and I will hopefully be sewing something along those lines for my everyday wardrobe, but it has also been my main inspiration behind this idea. However, as most of my Travel Agent trips are around a week or so, I feel 4 pieces just aren't enough, so I'm going to aim for either a 6 piece or 8 piece mini capsule wardrobe. If you haven't already checked out the flickr group for the challenge, you so should! Some of the lovely capsule wardrobe's that are being made are to die for!

For my Travel Wardrobe I will be sewing with mostly (if not all) knit fabrics and trying to stick within a certain colour scheme. I am thinking Black, Red and Leopard print. As for the pieces, for the bottoms I want 1 pencil skirt, 1 half circle skirt and a pair of pants and for the tops I'm thinking a long sleeve scoop neck top, a sweetheart halter neck and a short sleeved collared shirt. To extend this into a true full capsule wardrobe I may add in a jacket and bathing suit (yes I need a bathing suit for work trips as they usually involve beaches and/or pools)

A quick scribble while at work gave me this plan, but I'm not completely decided on the colours yet.

I really love the sweetheart halter style, but can't decide whether I want it in black or red, so perhaps I'll make it reversible? That would add extra options to my capsule wardrobe.....

Actually I think I've already changed my mind....... Argh! This is so hard!

I already have a few patterns I know I will use, and some will just be self-drafted (like the half circle skirt and long sleeve scoop neck tee) I will keep you all updated on the progress of my Travel Capsule wardrobe

Here a some of the fabrics I have so far. The leopard print is a bit lighter in colour than I would like, but I have a few meters of it, so that is what I will use. The black is only a remnant, so will only be enough for either a skirt or top and I will have to buy/find some other black for the other item. The red is a lightweight jersey that is probably only suitable for a shirt, not a skirt, So I will either have to find a matching red in a heavier fabric or buy a completely different fabric for both skirt and top.

Has anyone else tried sewing a Travel Friendly Capsule wardrobe, or any type of Capsule Wardrobe for that matter?

Dixie