In my previous post in this series, I discussed one way to expand a capsule wardrobe: adding extra pieces in the capsule's palette from your closet, especially print pieces. Today I'm introducing a second way to supplement a capsule: adding a new accent color to the capsule's palette.
I expect this suggestion to be controversial to some capsule purists, and I get it. One of the reasons capsule wardrobes work in some instances is by narrowing down the options to a limited color palette so that items can easily be mixed and matched. Once you start expanding the color palette, the power to combine pieces freely into outfits is lessened. But some capsule wardrobes have a starting color palette with colors that can't be freely mixed to begin with, so adding another color isn't really changing anything there. And though some people like the idea of having a capsule with a very tight color palette because the pieces look nice hanging together in the closet, I find that closet-level cohesion to be of vastly less importance than having clothes that can be made into outfits that look and feel great to wear!
But won't adding more colors lead to chaos and overwhelm? For some people, it could, especially if it's not handled in a thoughtful way. For others, adding a new color is a way to revive interest in a capsule that might be feeling stale. It's also a way to incorporate a color that you didn't want to dominate your capsule but that you would still enjoy wearing at least a bit. Holiday colors (black, orange, purple, and/or green for Halloween; red and green for Christmas; etc.) are one example that comes to mind.
You might wonder whether expanding the color palette means having to do a lot of extra shopping (which might feel like an advantage or disadvantage, depending on the person), and I say definitely not! The approach here is to shop your closet first...and preferably only your closet.
In my case, I decided to play with adding some bright pink to my fall/winter capsule. I really like wearing the combination of black, white, and bright pink, and with the current Barbiecore trend, this year feels like a good time to indulge that. As you'll see, I incorporated bright pink into my capsule wardrobe by focusing on the black and white items already in my capsule as the base of my outfits and finishing them with pops of pink. With a vivid accent color, a little bit can go a long way.
For my first bright-pink-enhanced capsule outfit, I started with the black jeans in my capsule and a black polka dot T (a supplemental piece in the capsule's color palette) to create a variant on the inner column of color color formula as my outfit's base. I layered a bright pink cardigan over the black column for a high contrast look.
And I could have stopped there with the bright pink, finishing the outfit with black and white accessories from the capsule and still having a lot of visual impact from the pop of bright pink. I think that would be a terrific option. In this case, I decided to add a bit more pink in some accessories for two reasons:
(1) To further integrate the bright pink into the outfit for a more harmonious look rather than a color-blocked/pop of color look. How much you want your colors to be bridged by pieces that combine the colors and how much you want to the colors to be separate from each other is an individual choice that will probably differ not only from person to person, but for a given person from day to day.
(2) To add some print mixing to the outfit. I've definitely been experimenting this year with "go big" print mixing, curious to push my boundaries and test where my limits are.
So I tossed on this brilliant bird motif silk scarf with the black and white of the top and the bright pink of the cardigan along with some zesty orange, brown/tan/yellow bird colors, and built-in print mixing. I used one of my favorite tying techniques for not-cold weather: loop to the front with ends loose (method #4 in this post).
I decided to balance the "a lot going on" of the top half of my outfit by adding some extra interest to the bottom half with these fun knit geometric pattern smoking flats by Skechers. These shoes fit directly into my original color palette, so they will be easy to wear with a lot of different outfits, not just ones with pink.
I built my daily bracelet stack around a DIY paper bead bracelet set I had made to coordinate with this scarf (see page to bead photos with outfit #2 here). I added the black and white DIY paper bead bracelet to repeat that color combination and finished the stack with two DIY bright pink glass pearl bead bracelets.
No surprise, I made a pair of bead soup earrings to go with the paper bead bracelet set, which means that I now have a set of three coordinating pieces: scarf + bracelets + earrings. It's interesting...because I was creating the earrings to go with the bracelets (which has a primary color scheme of bright pink, black, and white and only hints of coral/orange) and not the scarf itself, I used bright pink, black, and white beads. Had I designed the earrings directly to coordinate with the scarf, I might have brought in some additional colors, especially the orange tones. But it's good to remember when designing a piece of jewelry to coordinate with other items that you don't have to include every color from the inspiration item in your piece of jewelry (although of course you can)! Drawing a more limited range of colors from the inspiration item can work extremely well too. I chose the pink glass swirly "porphyr" beads as my focals, then added plain glass beads in black and white to bookend them in a stack.
Moving to capsule outfit #13, I wore the solid black pants in the capsule for the first time, circled in red.
I wore the black pants with the blue short-sleeved T from the capsule, topping it with an "added item in the capsule's palette" in the form of a long-sleeved check shirt worn as a lightweight jacket.
I certainly have a number of scarves within the capsule's palette I could have used to tie together the black, white, and blue colors (several of which I've already worn and added to the accessory capsule), but I really love the way the blue of the t-shirt looks with the blue background of this skinny silk scarf with the colorful fish print. So I wore the fish scarf as another pink-related option.
I did repeat my shoes from a previous capsule outfit, choosing these black polka dot studded flats for some extra pizzazz (but not extra color) in the bottom half of the outfit.
My daily bracelet stack consists of mostly seed bead bracelets I made in a light color palette of yellow, pink, blue, and green to coordinate with my striped linen jacket (shown below). The seed bead bracelet set contains four solid bracelets and four with a mix of colors, from which I pulled 5 to wear in this stack. I added a pair of DIY mixed metal spacer bead bracelets and a silver/light blue bracelet (from Christopher & Banks) as well as one paper bead bracelet I created to go with the seed bead set. Because the striped linen jacket and this fish scarf share many of the same colors, it worked well with this outfit too...though it was a bit odd to me that I didn't have any black in the bracelet stack because I'm usually so matchy with the colors, haha!
When I saw this image of cardigans in a Lands End catalog, I knew right away that the colors would be perfect to match my striped linen jacket. I'm not sure I could have designed a page from scratch that is better than this one! I added navy marker to cover up the small amounts of white text, then cut strips and rolled them into long skinny bicone beads (1" long and 4mm around). See how the image of an array of cardigans turns into striped beads that alternate between green and navy centers? This is a very common layout in clothing catalogs (Lands End loves them), and it's pretty easy to anticipate how this kind of page will look when rolled into beads. I thought these beads were absolutely perfect for the striped jacket set.
Of course I have a new pair of bead soup earrings I made for this bracelet set. I pulled small-ish glass or crystal bead pairs in 5 of the colors of the paper beads and stacked them on a head pin with little silver seed beads at the top and bottom. For making these stack earrings, I find any kind of wider-than-tall bead like a rondelle, heishi, donut, disk, wheel, saucer, etc. very useful for adding impact to the earring without adding a lot of length.
For capsule outfit #13, I wore my black jeans again with an ivory textured top (a supplemental piece in the capsule's color palette) and the same bright pink bird/dot scarf as in the first outfit in this post. That's one of the great things about a simple neutral-tone base outfit like this one - you have so many options when it comes to accessorizing! It's also easy to let the accessories make a statement, and it doesn't take a lot of your chosen accent color to make a big impact to your look.
To pick up the warm orange tones of the scarf and the black of the pants, I chose a pair of leopard smoking slippers for my shoes. For me, leopard print shoes are a no-brainer addition to pretty much any capsule wardrobe, and when black in one of your colors, it's a slam dunk. In this predominantly neutral outfit, both the print and the texture of the shoes add interest to the look. I actually have a pretty good collection of textures in this outfit: the smooth silk of the scarf, the denim of the jeans, the calf hair of the shoes, and the raised ridges of the top. Since I prefer clothing with simple cuts/silhouettes put together in standard ways, and I don't adhere strongly to any particular aesthetic/-core, I use a combination of color, texture, and print to create visual interest in my otherwise pretty basic outfits.
My daily bracelet stack is made up of a bunch of DIY bead bracelets in an array of bright pink and orange tones to repeat the colors of the scarf. I decided to focus on vivid color with my bracelets since my overall outfit is so neutral. I happily mixed metals in my stack, using my typical technique of adding a mixed metal spacer bracelet to create a feeling of intentionality. (That poor silver/gold bracelet; the dark beads really did start out a bright gold color but have tarnished with wear so that they now look more like an antique bronze color.)
My earrings are another pair with a glass beaded link and a charm dangling from it (like the Dove of Peace earrings). The beads are a light hot pink color, which I thought would look nice with flower charms. I'm not very good about identifying actual flowers, let alone stylized ones, but I am calling these flowers Edelweiss because they have a shape similar to the Edelweiss motif earrings my mom gave me from a German Christmas market. One thing that's clear about this particular style of wire-wrapped glass beaded link + charm earrings (of which I've made several pairs) is that they look predominantly silver with just a touch of color in that one glass bead (which is itself obscured slightly by the wire).
Here is our updated accessory capsule, not including the pink items, after 14 outfits. We are up to 10 bracelet sets, 11 earring pairs, 13 necklaces, 5 scarves, and 9 pairs of shoes.
Most of the new accessories in the last 3 outfits, along with the cardigan from the first outfit, create a bright pink module that supplements our capsule wardrobe. I think the fact that there is only one piece of clothing in this pink module demonstrates how much of the heavy lifting accessories can do in changing things up. This module can function a bit like a French 5 or a beauty bundle/accessory set as a way to add a new color to your capsule wardrobe with just a few pieces.
Are you wearing bright pink this fall/winter? What colors do you like to pair with it? Do you have a narrow or broad color palette in your closet? Is your color palette narrower or broader than you'd prefer?
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