how I would approach a fit-for-purpose summer wardrobe (you might call it a capsule)
Plus, road trips with kids, living life "just in time" and being bad at doing nothing
In today’s newsletter, we are covering:
My reflections on watching how good my kids are at getting fully immersed in a single activity, and how it’s made me hyper-aware of how bad I am at it, but also want to get better
The way that a subtle softening of things that are hard and bad in the moment seems to settle over so many things related to parenting and adulthood
How you might go about creating a “capsule” wardrobe (despite the fact that I don’t love the term)
A list of pieces that I think most people could get a ton of wear out of in the summertime, and how you might think about finding the right version of the piece for you based on your lifestyle & personal style
A few weeks ago, I spent the weekend in Montreal with my old two, (they are 5 and 3), and my dad and sister, visiting with family that lives there, and some additional extended family members visiting from Europe. While the long car ride was challenging (we accidentally put downtown Montreal as the destination in our GPS on our drive, and didn’t remember we had the wrong destination until the GPS said we were about 10 minutes away only to realize our hotel was another 45 minutes in Friday evening traffic, plus my son seems to have random bouts of car-sickness which struck on our drive up!), it was a great weekend.
The weekend though, it really snuck up on me! The Monday of Memorial Day weekend I was looking at the calendar with my husband, just going through the things we had coming up in the next few weeks (it’s the season of many a weekend plan, after all). And I said, “Oh, our Montreal trip is coming up”. Then I realized, “Our Montreal trip is this next weekend”. Then, “It’s this Friday”. Then, “Today is Monday, oh shit, we’re going away in 4 days”.
So much of my life right now is just in time. I’m not sure if I should even bother classifying that as a good or bad thing. It’s an observation and reality. Constant triage, prioritization, ranking & ordering of what to deal with and address. The positive is that this helps to quiet anxiety and stress and worrying. An extended state of execution mode. The obvious negative, is that it leaves little time for the opposite of execution. Is that stillness, or nothing, or strategy mode? I’m not sure. I’m not great at doing nothing. Unless the nothing is rotting on the couch binging Nancy Meyers movies (I’m very good at this, but unfortunately the time I have to dedicate to this is very limited, and also, I’m not sure if one would consider this doing nothing strictly speaking).
I like to practice sitting and doing nothing with my kids - by just watching them play. Okay, like is maybe a strong word - but it is a good way to practice. I have ample opportunity to do this - with three kids who are at very different developmental stages - my oldest loves writing stories and making books, as well as creating elaborate make-believe situations and stories with his toys, and acting them out. He could do this for hours on his own. My middle daughter loves coloring and art - she will take out her art supplies and work on something for hours. And the baby, well, she is just getting into it, but she is newly able to scoot around our house, looking at everything and anything- marveling at how a door opens and closes, taking a shoe out of a basket, pulling a stray t-shirt on top of her head. I practice doing nothing by sitting and watching them, and just taking it in (and also locking my phone away).
It’s hard! In the sense that it’s hard not to want to do something productive - especially when they are engaged in an activity of their own - (laundry, cleaning, cooking, scrolling, popping an audiobook into my ear, you name it), and it’s hard (for me) to just sit. Recovering productivity monster with a minor phone addiction I’m trying to break, I suppose. But, I’m practicing. (PS - the most effective method for not being on my phone when I am with my kids, for me, is putting my phone in a different physical space. In the morning I leave it in my bedroom when I come downstairs. In the evenings, I drop it in a catch-all bowl we have by our front door when I walk in the door, or leave it in my office. I need to be physically separated from it to avoid the temptation!)
It is remarkable to me, and also motivating, to see how good my kids are at doing ONE THING at a time. How immersed they can be. How in the flow. How intrinsic it is to do one thing at a time and be fully focused on that one thing. SO observant. Able to watch a single ant walk across our patio and wonder what it might be doing or where it might be going. Watching them is enough to make me want to get better at it (it also helps that every expert out there is saying your brain should do one thing at a time, and our multi-tasking culture (especially at work) is killing our brain power!) How does it happen, that we stop working that way? That we stop being able to let ourselves be so immersed in one single thing?
Above my pay grade to answer that question, and also I know it’s the smartphones, adulthood, work, reality, life stressors, productivity obsession, TV, constant stimulation, you name it. Anyways! I didn’t mean to get lost in a tangent about doing nothing - but, I am working on it, especially this summer!
Where were we? Oh yes, living life just in time as I realized that a 6-hour each-way road trip to Canada was mere days away. I prepared the only way one really can for this type of trip - by diving deep into Amazon to find a few fun treats to pull out for my kids so that they would have a few fun and *new* (this is key) treats to keep them entertained during an inevitably meal-at-restaurant-heavy family visit.
As I was doing that deep dive, I caught myself laughing in a slightly hysterical way at the memory from the Spring of 2022 when we took a big road trip (MA to North Carolina). When we planned the trip, it had been amid a recurrence of Covid in the fall. We hadn’t seen my husband’s parents in ages, and when we did it was full of the many steps of quarantining and testing and overanalyzing every tiny symptom throughout our visit. We decided flying to visit them might be too risky, and so landed on the decision to drive, because, well, how bad could it be.
Well, reader. I know I’m supposed to show you, not TELL YOU, but — 15 hours in a car with a 14-month-old and a 3-year-old - I’m sure you can imagine, and if you can’t - my daughter, the 14 month old, basically cried the entire first 4 hours of the trip. From Massachusetts to New York, she cried.
We stopped, offered her snacks, tried to get her to nurse, and changed her diaper. Didn’t matter. She was pissed about being contained in her car seat and there was nothing we could do to soothe that frustration. She finally passed out when we got to NYC, only to wake back up the moment we hit bumper-to-bumper traffic crossing into New Jersey. It was at this point I was investigating flights home and letting my husband drive our car back to Boston after our three weeks in North and South Carolina.
After (during) that trip, we (I) swore that we (I) would never do a road trip with our kids again. Or we would avoid it at all costs. The stress and noise and frustration and overstimulation of that trip was FRESH. We are not road trip people (I’m not a road trip person, I grew up in a family where our longest car ride was from our town to the cape (~2ish hours).
Fast forward to later that year - we went to Montreal to visit family (the same family we visited on our most recent trip). And even in the 5 months or so (not that long, objectively speaking) between those two car rides, the terribleness of that first car ride sort of…faded away? And now, mostly what I remember about both trips is the fun stuff. I mean, I remember the first four hours of our drive to NC - there is nothing that will erase that, but, I laugh about it now. It reminds me of this piece I wrote awhile ago. What is that? Is it that nothing is as bad as it seems, that you can do hard things, that you’ll miss it when they’re older, or that the bad things fade away, or that our memories reshuffle and rewire so that we don’t remember the bad stuff? Does a subtle softening settle over everything in parenthood as time passes by? Although, it’s not just through the lens of parenthood that I have this experience - there are so many parts and places in my life where something seemed like the biggest thing in the world at the time, and now that it’s in the rearview, it doesn’t seem nearly as bad/big/hard/crazy as it did at the time. Is this just getting older???
The breakneck pace of life right now can make it hard to have time to notice these types of things - to think about them or turn them over in my head. So, when I have an “a ha” moment I’m grateful for them and I do my best to chase them down - to go after the trail of the thought for as long as I can hold on to it - to write it down, and keep writing, and then re-write and edit. So, thank you for reading, and for being willing to take a peek at a little exposed part of my brain/being.
Summer Capsule (even though I don’t love the term “Capsule”)
Now that I word vomited, we can make a nice segue into the clothes portion of this piece…. If you want to skip straight to shopping, you can find all the pieces featured in this piece, plus more, here.
Whenever I put a question box up to answer styling, shopping, or life questions on my Instagram, I get something along the lines of - “What would you include in a capsule wardrobe for XX season?” or, “What are the must-have items for summer?” These questions are hard to answer in a way that will appeal to the masses (lol that I just referred to my less than 3K instagram following as “the masses” but hopefully you’ll throw me a bone on that).
I don’t love the terminology of “Capsule” wardrobe, because I associate it with so many rules - a certain number of pieces, only so many of X item, only these colors, none of this type of thing, no fun or items you have just because. It summons an image of white, black, navy & cream. Of minimal or very preppy-styles of clothes. And there’s nothing wrong with that - in fact I gravitate toward those colors a lot, but it doesn’t do a great job of encapsulating a variety of styles, and because I find wardrobe “rules” to be a barrier to people who are working on figuring out their personal style and getting more comfortable with their wardrobes. Too many things to clutter your mind when your focus should be on what looks and feels good to YOU. Because, this is personal! There are pieces that I think are foundational & universal - let’s say, a wide-leg, easy pant - BUT, depending on your personal style & lifestyle, the piece that fits this gap might look really different - it could be a linen trouser, or it could be a drawstring waist gauzy pant, or it could be a more athletic-looking pant, or it could be a silky bias-cut pant.
But, I recognize why so many people like the concept of a capsule wardrobe - in the sense that it’s about curating a smaller selection of pieces that you will actually wear for the season ahead. And hopefully, many of them are pieces that mix and match and can be styled multiple different ways.
There are also a few questions I would recommend you reflect on before you make your own list & shop - to make sure you are buying things that a) match your personal style, b) that you love and c) will actually wear (the personal style sweet spot!).
Start by thinking about what occasions you get dressed for, and how often. You don't need to go crazy, but think about - what do you do every (or most?) days - consider things like - working in an office, working at home, casual dinners out, running errands, going to exercise classes, etc. And then, think about what you do on weekends - is it mostly kids activities? Things with friends? Hobbies? Going out for meals? Date night/evenings out? How does this shake out over the course of a month? Be as honest with yourself as you can - this will help you buy things you reach for and wear!
Think about your style preferences a little bit - ask yourself questions like - do you feel your best when your clothes skew dressier or more casual? In pants or dresses, girly or masculine? Look at screenshots, and images you’ve saved on Pinterest & Instagram to answer this!
Then, finally, I would take a seasonal approach - eg: think about the types of things you’d wear in the current/upcoming season and start there!
So, with summer on the horizon, here are the pieces I would include if I was creating a “Summer Capsule,” and ideas for how you might select these pieces so that they fit your life and style. You can shop all the pieces I’ve curated for these items here (everything included in this post and more!)
1: Wide-Leg, Lightweight Pant - This could be linen, gauze, cotton, drawstring or not. If you go into an office, or if your style tends towards more “dressed up” maybe it’s a more tailored, wide-leg trouser (these are great too) that you can wear with a button down & blazer or tank and sneakers. If you lean more maximalist or bohemian, maybe you choose something with a bold pattern. These pants from J.Crew are wonderful, and I also have this pair from (can you believe it?) Abercrombie (the white is NOT see-through, which I appreciate). If I needed another pair, I would choose these from Donni (they are TTS). How amazing do these from Almina Concept look?
2: Dress up / dress down short - This is another example where you have to think about your lifestyle and preferences to pick the right pair. I personally have these in white and love them - long enough, not tight, and the linen blend means they don’t wrinkle too much (also price is nice!) You might opt for denim, in which case these are great. For a tailored look, I like this option and this pair. For something more unstructured/casual, these are great, these too.
3: Button-down shirt - This is a closet workhorse. Wear it with pants or shorts (tucked or untucked), as a layer over dresses, tied around your waist, as a coverup when you go to the beach or pool. There are SO many options out there. You probably have one in my closet. If you want a classic poplin-style I love this. If you’re into the easy-breeziness of linen - this is fab (oversized on it’s own). I just got this (I am a donni superfan) and it is PERFECT (more colorways here). If you want color or stripes, this is great. I used to have this idea in my head that I had to have work button-downs, and weekend button-downs, and beach/pool button downs. What resulted was way more items than I needed, only some of which I actually loved, and most of which sat mostly unworn in my closet. I know now that clothes are meant to be worn, and when things can be worn different ways, that’s the best. Yes, I reserve my silk button-downs for work or nights out, but, all my other ones, they’re in my closet because I can wear them for all different types of getting-dressed occasions.
4: Mini Dress- IF you will actually wear a mini, then they are in right now and there are SO MANY cute options. I LOVE this. This too. And some options under $100 include this (love the A-line silhouette of this one!), this, and this! Dress it up for a night out with a heel or strappy sandal, or dress it down with sneakers or casual slide-on sandals. (I do not need this, I do not need this, I do not need this, but I LOVE IT).
5: Easy dress - This is your throw-on-and-go. The key is to think about the occasions you are going to wear it for. The actual occasions, that you have in REAL LIFE. Personally, I need a dress I can dress up for work (but still only needs to be business casual), and dress down on the weekends. Bonus if I could wear it out for a fun dinner or evening out. Maybe you have a more formal office environment and need something dressier, or maybe you spend most of your time with your kids, and you need something you can sit and stand and run around in and not worry about. This is great, this too, and I love this.
6: Special Dress - for any events you have, or to have something just because. This is insanely gorgeous. Great for a summer wedding. How fun is this? You would wear this one for years to come. This feels on-trend, but with lots of longevity. Deeply obsessed.
7: Maxi Skirt - This is something that is great for the heat - airy and lightweight, but can easily be dressed up or down. Wear with a button down for work, with a silky tank for an evening out, with a t-shirt and sneakers for an easy Saturday, or with your bathing suit to the beach. I love a solid color option (similar look for less). Love the color of this.
8: Lightweight blazer, lady cardigan or jacket - If you dress up for work, then I think a layering piece like this is very helpful. It will finish off a ton of your looks, plus helps to keep you warm in an air-conditioned office. I love a linen blazer, or a cotton-blend lady jacket. This is amazing.
9: Knit tank - I recently added this tank from Alex Mill to my wardrobe and I love it. A super versatile piece that feels as easy as jeans and a simple top, but feels way more elevated. I’m wearing for work, and with jeans shorts on the weekends. I plan to pair with a slip skirt, and wear it as a layering piece over dresses. I love this. This too. For my stripe lovers.
10: Cotton-knit sweater - For chilly nights, for chilly offices, for shade from the sun, for over-your-shoulder wear. I swear by the J.Crew rollneck Men’s sweaters for summertime. I think I’ve had mine for over a decade. But, people love this one too. And, I saw this in J.crew a few weeks ago and liked the look of it! This is on my wishlist.
11: Simple tee shirts & tank tops - You probably want a few t-shirts and tanks that you can wear with all your bottoms, or under long-sleeve shirts, or as a slinky top with skirts. I love this rib-knit tee, and this rib-tank (racerback bra friendly). This is also a great tee, and so is this tank.
12: Ballet flat - Add polish to the most casual summer outfit by adding ballet flats. A classic black pair is always a good choice. I also love cream or blush for summer. Or a woven texture. Or a fun pattern to add a pop to any outfit!
13: Everyday sandal - Something walkable, comfortable and versatile. Everyone’s feet are different, so this can take a lot of trial and error, but sharing selects from a few brands that I know many people love. These could be dressed up or down. These are a little too narrow for me (my feet are slightly wide), but if you have normal-width feet, they would be fab! These are great. Love the chunky look of these.
14: Strappy sandals - to wear to events, evenings out, date-nights, parties, weddings etc. These are special and fun. I also love gold. These too. I have and love these.
15: Summer-friendly Jean - If you are a jeans person, then a light wash (don’t sleep on Reformation Jeans!), maybe in a simple straight or easy style will get a lot of wear. Or maybe you want a white pair (these are great and the price is right - I recommend sizing up a couple sizes). Or, you could try a fun color (my sister has these and they’re SO FUN!) I also have these and they just feel SO GOOD in summer with a strappy sandal and a simple tank. The light wash looks great.
16. Bathing Suit - I’m newly devoted to Left on Friday, and I also got this cute suit from Staud and I LOVE it (wish it came in more colorways!!) If you want to spend less, I can’t sing enough praises for this line from Aerie!
17. Summery Bag - You might want a small handbag, you might want a huge carry-all, you might want something just big enough to fit your laptop, you might want something that isn’t to precious to shlep to the beach (found this one via
). No matter what, a summery bag should bring you joy and add that easy-breezy-summery vibe to your outfits. The best part? You’re going to get it off Etsy or secondhand, you don’t need to spend more than $100, and not every other person you see is going to have it. The best market tote. A great classic woven bag.Okay, that’s it for today! Thanks for reading. You can shop every piece pictured and link in this essay (as well as some extra bonus pieces), here.
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I love your take on a capsule wardrobe! To me, “capsule” always = neutrals = boring, but I love how you have color and pattern in yours! I love the floral minidress, the stripes, the linen, and the ballet flats! 🥿 This is such a great and helpful guide without being too prescriptive
Thank you for this! This was such a helpful framework and lead to my first well thought out sale purchase last weekend! A simple navy maxi dress from Loft which I can throw on and wear in different ways is a godsend with this heatwave we’ve been having!