When I was assigned to do an article on wearing a capsule wardrobe for a week, I thought that a challenge enough.  Not only was the article based on a challenge, but getting it done was a challenge itself. Ideally, I was to recruit participants to take “The Capsule Challenge” with me and report on their experiences throughout a week. The first challenge was figuring out what a capsule wardrobe is. Neither I, as a self-declared social-media wizard, nor any of my friends knew what a capsule wardrobe is.  

Kat Collins of whowhatwear.com cites Caroline Rector as an expert on capsule wardrobes (un-fancy.com).  Rector explains the capsule as “a mini wardrobe made up of really versatile pieces that you totally love to wear” (whowhatwear.com).  The idea behind limiting the size of your closet is to live more simply and focus on what’s important.

The challenge then is to attempt to limit the wardrobe. This involves picking a certain number of clothing items (shoes and accessories included) and a number of weeks, days, or even months to wear only those clothes within the capsule. For example, one to two weeks would require a capsule of 12 pieces while one month on the other hand, would require a larger capsule of about 24 pieces. For the amount of time chosen for the challenge, those involved would mix and match and wear the pieces.

I attempted to find four to five recruits and have them journal their experience every day. I found a total of two.

After discussing the concept with several friends and classmates, they all seemed to think negatively of the idea. After a while it became quite annoying asking people and then having to explain it over and over when I barely knew what it was myself.

So this is an article about the article that didn’t run because of lack of participants. While this may be a catchy trend in Europe and even some circles of the United States, it has not caught on with the teenagers of NAHS. Truthfully, I’m not exactly surprised no one wanted to try it out because I wasn’t exactly looking forward to doing it myself. Let’s face it, the students at NAHS are too diverse and stylish to stick to the same basic wardrobe.