I have a confession, and it’s a funny one to make as someone who talks about capsule wardrobes for a living: mine doesn’t really work for me right now.
It’s been a long time since I did a real edit of my own closet — the kind where you’re honest, not just tidying. And lately, I’ve been feeling it. Some mornings, getting dressed takes longer than it should. That’s usually the first sign something’s off.
Here’s what happened. Somewhere over the past couple of years, I went from wearing a little bit of color to wearing black almost exclusively. I think I needed that — like I was letting an old version of myself fade out. By last fall, it wasn’t just black anymore. It was black on black on black. Fifty shades of it, if I’m honest. I’ll always wear black — that’s not changing — but if I open my closet right now, everything in it is dark.
And then this summer, something shifted. I started wanting color back. Not a lot. Just some.
At the same time, I just finished redecorating my home. It feels completely different now — lighter, more like the person I am today. But my wardrobe didn’t get the same update. It’s still dressing someone I used to be. That gap between the space I live in and the clothes I put on my body every morning is one I can’t ignore anymore.
I love a good process — building one is basically half of what I do for a living. Usually that happens behind closed doors, one client at a time, and it goes a lot deeper than what I’m about to share here. This time I wanted to build a piece of it out loud, with you, instead. Person to person, not consultant to client.
So before I touch a single hanger, I’m starting with the most honest question I have: what do my actual days look like, not the ones I wish I had.
Right now, honestly, there are four places you’d find me. My studio, five or six days a week. The gym, four days a week — I did CrossFit for years, and lately I’ve moved into Hyrox. Home, where I’ve been spending a lot of time since redecorating. And errands — the unglamorous grocery-store version of a day.
I want a fifth. I’ve been putting myself out there more — an art exhibition, working from a coffee shop instead of my studio, a drawing class I signed up for, even a networking event. I let my “going out” wardrobe lapse for a while, and I’m slowly bringing it back. Not the club version. Just the version where I still feel like myself when I leave the house for something that isn’t work.
That’s the real starting point. Not a mood board. Not a list of ten essential pieces someone else decided on. Just an honest look at where my life actually is right now, and whether my closet has caught up to it yet.
Mine hasn’t, not fully. So I’m doing the work — not the full process I use with clients, that one goes much deeper and it’s personal to each of them — but the piece of it I can build in the open, with you, starting with this exact question: where do your days actually take you?
If you’re feeling any version of this — a closet that’s dressing an old chapter, mornings that take longer than they should — I built a free five-day practice to walk through it. I’m doing it myself, alongside anyone who wants to join me.
