I love helping women to plan their holiday wardrobe. Usually, by now, I have been instrumental in packing many a suitcase heading off to the sun. The owners of these suitcases used to pack far too much and end up returning home with many unworn items. By applying my tried and tested method for creating a capsule holiday wardrobe, we often halved the number of clothes they took on their hols and yet they had more outfits with them than usual and wore them all!
This year of course is proving somewhat different and very few of us are flying off for our summer holiday. However, if you are taking a UK break, do you know how to pack for that?
I don’t know about you, but travelling by car means that the temptation to pack everything but the kitchen sink increases ten fold! “oh just throw it in, we’ve got space” is a frequently used phrase!
However, even if you are not going abroad, you can still apply the same thoughts to your packing to ensure you only take what you need… here are my top tips…
1. Where are you going? in typical UK fashion, we never quite know quite what the weather will be doing! So, before you go, keep a check on the weather in that area. You might need more shorts than trousers, more t-shirts than sweaters than you would in your home area.
2. What will you be doing? a few days city break could require different outfits to a week at the beach or a week cycling trip. So, map out each day and your likely (you don’t have to timetable everything!) activities. Don’t forget to include the travelling days and the level of comfort you like while in the car.
3. Base Colourway - to make a capsule wardrobe work well, decide on a colour that will run through each outfit. This helps to ensure that you don’t pack items which have no “friends” and end up unworn.
4. Layers - to help with the potential changeable weather, the key to a capsule wardrobe is layering. Begin with camisole/vest tops that will work with your shorts/skirts/joggers/jeans/trousers. Add in shirts, fine-medium knit and a denim jacket or similar. If it warms up, you can remove layers and if it cools down, you can add them.
5. Don’t get wet! - Don’t forget a rain coat and ensure it’s not too tight so you can layer under it.
6. Footwear - if you are embarking on sporting activities you will know the appropriate footwear to pack. In addition, choose comfortable and a neutral colour way. That way, the colour goes with everything you pack in your capsule wardrobe and avoids you taking your entire shoe collection!
7. Extras - even though it’s the UK, don’t forget your sunscreen and hat - even here we need to protect our skin, especially our faces. We’ve never had to pack a mask and sanitiser before have we? well, there’s a first time for everything.
Overall, have a super time wherever you go and if you’d like to learn more about a capsule holiday wardrobe, check out the video…
Best wishes, Sarah x