I've been on the lookout for a decent chambray shirt for a while.

It's also more practical than white. 

Following the big clothes purge of 2016, the next step in my journey towards minimalist wardrobedom was finding the perfect way to display the pieces that survived. 

Obviously, this step is completely unnecessary and not very 'minimalist' at all; your normal closet will absolutely suffice.  

But seeing as I also planned on starting a blog I thought I'd better get my insta-head on and make the whole process a bit more photogenic. 

Other than the clothes themselves, I needed three things: some hangers, a rail and a venue. 

All three needed to fit the simple but stylish aesthetic I was aspiring towards. They also needed to be cheap, for reasons previously outlined. 

Here's what I came up with...

Exposed clothing racks have never really appealed to me. They invoke memories of rainy car boot sales and messy student bedrooms, existing only to hold a jumble of mismatched Primark dresses and the odd 'vintage' coat. 

But a capsule wardrobe should be made up of pieces aesthetically pleasing and cohesive enough to be displayed out in the open. So too should the thing on which said pieces hang.  

Though functional enough, the one I've used to temporarily store my wardrobe rejects isn't exactly Pinterest friendly. So I got onto Etsy in search of something a bit prettier. I thought a copper one would look nice and would probably be fairly cheap. Nope. Couldn't find one for under £100. 

At this point, Arran looked at me in bewilderment and said, 'you know that's just copper piping that costs five quid a metre from B&Q, right?' 

'Can you make me one?'

'Er, yeah...'

It was at this point I relinquished any pretence that I was the kind of feminist who could change a tire.  I decided, instead, to be the kind of feminist who would delegate. I became the female boss. Here are some photos of the process I oversaw:

And here's the finished product:

Nice work, Arran! Now please can you sort those wires out... Cheers babe. 

The hangers | A white wood bargain

Again, I was surprised by how little money I needed to spend here. 

At first I thought a trip to Ikea would be necessary (these would do nicely). But, as it turns out, it only took a lunch break stroll down to good ol' Wilko's to find something similar and even cheaper, at just £2.50 for 5! 

I bought two lots. 

What?! I'm not cutting my wardrobe down that much...

I'll be honest: we live in a rented terraced house in Walkley, just outside Sheffield city centre. While I wouldn't call this 'city living', we are close enough to town to walk home after a night out (though this rarely happens now that Uber is in town) and the selection of hipster cafes on our doorstep definitely helps with our delusions of Brooklyn-ness. 

We also have a lovely, roomy attic that more than makes up for the ugly wood chip adorning the walls AND ceiling of our master bedroom. Clean, white walls, original varnished floorboards and white bookshelves filled with unread high-brow literature and coffee-table art books - it's the perfect place to construct an revisionist version of who I am/ wish I was. 

To conclude: it may be true that all you need to build a capsule wardrobe is a bit of ruthlessness and the closet you already have. 

However, the benefits of setting things up in Pinterest-worthy surroundings go beyond improving your chances of 'making it' as a blogger. 

I've found that putting some effort into making my capsule wardrobe something I actually like to look at and that I enjoy writing about/ taking photos of has motivated me to keep going at it. 

I'm getting rid of garments day by day and have become much more discerning while shopping, as I'll only keep and buy things that I know will look good on my lovely copper piping clothing rack in my lovely little attic. 

Let's hope it lasts!

~ Fern

Now that I've started on this journey, though, I've realised that achieving the kind of simplicity I dream of isn't quite so... simple. If I was just a little more fiscally secure, this whole thing would be a piece of cake. However, chucking out the entirety of my Florence & Fred based wardrobe in order to repopulate it with timeless chambray from Whistles just isn't realistic for someone on an average salary with rent, bills and a portion of medically necessary tikka paneer to pay for each month.  

That's not to say I haven't been brutal about the seek and destroy process. I've purged my wardrobe of nearly all the bobbly tops, unflattering playsuits and too-short bodycons from 2008. But this process is quite a messy one. Once half the stuff has been bagged up and shipped off to the charity shop, the bits you feel are too expensive to give away will need a temporary home before they're sold on eBay (and don't get me started on the rigmarole involved in that). If you're super organised (I'm not) you can probably execute this portion of the project with military precision. But as I'm a bit lazy and partial to sustained procrastination, I've ended up with a rail of rejects at the end of my bed - a temporary measure which is becoming more permanent as each day goes by.

Even as I'm going through this somewhat messy process, though, I'm starting to see the benefits that living a more sartorially simple life can offer. For one, figuring out what my personal style is and choosing pieces that fit in with that has been surprisingly liberating. I no longer feel the need to follow every trend that comes along. Instead, when shopping I will only buy something that is:

a) comfortable;

b) versatile; and

c) enduringly stylish

That the items in my capsule wardrobe should also be good quality AND within my budget goes without saying, and ticking both these boxes at once will be challenge in itself. But I'm very much aware that this is a process and that I'll learn important lessons as I go along. Which items are worth spending more money on? Which budget brands offer the level of quality I'm after? Which accessories are worth the investment? These are the kind of questions currently circling around in my head amongst the crisp white blouses and classic loafers I'm dreaming of incorporating into my new, streamlined closet. And they're questions I'll hopefully start to answer on this blog, thereby helping anyone else on this 'journey' (queue the intro to Elbow's Day Like This...).


~ Fern x