I think a lot of people come to these style systems in part because it simplifies your life. You can get rid of everything that doesn’t work, and have a carefully curated wardrobe that only has things you actually wear. Many want to create wardrobe capsules for their Kibbe type and season.

But there’s a problem with capsules, one I never really recognized until I started learning things from David Kibbe. In order to get a capsule wardrobe to all work together, it ends up being, well, boring. I got an email a few days ago from Net-a-Porter with a link to This page. All of the clothes in set are very well designed and expensive, but they’re all boring. This is what most capsule wardrobes on Pinterest look like. When you’re choosing items to match with a maximum amount of other items, it reasons to follow that nothing you choose can be all that interesting.

But this is the way most of us have been taught to shop. We are supposed to ask ourselves how many other things we can pair a potential new purchase with. David Kibbe, on the other hand, has an entirely different philosophy. He told us that we are supposed to shop in terms of “head to toe,” that we should buy an entire outfit at once. At first glance, this seems wasteful. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I often wear the same outfit over and over again. I don’t need everything to play well together. Perhaps instead of buying pieces, we would better served by buying things that create one special outfit. With a small wardrobe, you won’t necessarily get less wear out of a pair of pants that only works with a specific top if this is an outfit that you love and you’ll wear frequently.

I decided a while ago that I would write a sequel to the workbook focusing on the Three Levels of Dress. The reason why I have been a little quieter here lately is partially because I’ve been working on this new workbook. But it will also be a Head-to-Toe workbook that will take the wardrobe rebuilding idea from the original and expand it to something that will allow you to truly express yourself and your style.

Have you ever tried to create a capsule wardrobe? Have you tried head-to-toe dressing?

As I think it happens fairly often, as soon as I had gotten around to accepting that there were clothes I was just never going to fit into again and I had rounded them up and given them to a friend, the motivation suddenly came to me to change my lifestyle. I eat more fast food than I’m even willing to admit here, and once I counted it all up, I realized that I was consuming at least 1000 calories just in Coca-Cola a day. This is not only terrible for your waistline, but disastrous for your health. I’ve been discussing this process some on my other blog, but I’d like to discuss one specific aspect here, and that is wardrobe rebuilding.

According to my Lose It! app, if I stay on track, I’ll be at my goal weight (what I was when I graduated from college and was going to the gym a lot so I could get my PE credit and graduate on time) sometime around my 30th birthday on July 23rd. I wear a size M/L, 8/10 US now, and back then I was an XS/S, size 2/4. So obviously, a lot of what I own is going to be too big. This will necessitate rebuilding the bulk of my wardrobe from the ground up.

Some things, like sweatshirts, will be fine to wear as-is. Other things, like jeans and leggings, I replace on a seasonal basis anyway, so there’s not going to be a real change. Where it’s really going to matter is Levels 2 and 3. I have only two formal dresses, since I don’t dress up all that much. I’ve already worn my more conservative one to pretty much every family function in the past year and a half, so it’s probably time to retire it anyway.

And then there’s Level 2, which I didn’t really have much of in the first place. Working on this level was something I was going to do anyway, so there’s no real difference.

The big one, however, is outerwear. My heavy coat probably should have been replaced this season, since its zipper only works when it feels like and there’s a few tears. I’ll have to see how my other coats fit when the time comes.

Luckily for myself, I’m going into this armed with my workbook. I’ll be posting screenshots here and there of my rebuilding progress, once my weight stabilizes and I can start investing in pieces.

If you have experience with redoing your entire wardrobe, I’d like any advice you have.