Teacher Foundation Wardrobe

One of the best parts of blogging is the people I get to meet. With very few exceptions, fellow style bloggers are a friendly bunch who like to share ideas and collaborate. One connection I've made is with Kate from Kate in the Classroom. Kate is an aspiring teacher who substitute teaches in a diverse school district while completing her education degree. Kate in the Classroom is about Kate’s teacher style- what works in the classroom, and some general thoughts on fashion and life. Kate documents her real, every day style in an effort to contribute to the on-going personal style conversation and provide another example of a young, professional wardrobe. One thing I love about her blog is that Kate uses the capsule wardrobe model to help her select the right pieces for her lifestyle. Since I'm fascinated by the capsule wardrobe movement, but too scared to commit to it, I love to read about Kate's journey and learn from her experiences.

A few weeks ago, Kate contacted me to see if I'd want to collaborate on something "teacher related." Of course I said yes and we began brainstorming. In no time at all, we landed on a concept that we both loved. We decided to create a mini capsule for teachers, 10 outfits from 10 pieces, to demonstrate how a little creativity can go a long way. Follow us for the next two weeks as we show you how ten carefully chosen staple pieces can create a selection of easy, go-to outfits. I love a one hit wonder outfit as much as the next girl, but it's important to acknowledge that having a solid wardrobe foundation is far more useful than trendy pieces that don't work more than one way. If you're interested in joining the challenge, this post will give you a good place to start as I explain how I chose my ten pieces. And when you're done here, go straight to Kate in the Classroom to hear her side of things!

When planning ten outfits (five for a work week), I knew right away I would want five different tops so I wouldn't have to wear them more than once per week. But before I picked tops, I needed to start with a color palette. Using my Stylebook app, I searched through my available work pants and skirts, and chose my black pants, black pencil skirt, and wine colored pants as my bottoms. Then I looked for colors that would go well and selected black, white, gray, and burgundy. I like how simple the colors are because it makes the possibilities endless! I then selected five versatile tops, a sweater, and a blazer that can all be mixed and matched. Kate and I decided that we would not include shoes or accessories in the capsule since we wanted to focus on foundational clothing items. Once I had my ten pieces, I began by creating two new outfits per top on Stylebook. I quickly discovered that I can actually make way more than 10 different outfits with the pieces! This whole capsule thing is actually much more diverse than I would have guessed.

The next two weeks of posts will look a little different from my usual blog photos. Instead of going outside, I decided to take all photos on the same neutral background to help create focus on the clothing. I will also be opting out of purses since I want this to speak to teachers (teachers carry laptop bags and rolling crates of books, for those who don't know).

It turns out that great blogger minds really do think alike, because when I saw Kate's capsule for the first time I had to chuckle. They're pretty similar for coming out of two different closets! See for yourself:

I hope you're as excited for this as I am. Come back tomorrow morning for this capsule's first look. Be sure to comment below if you're planning on joining us on this capsule challenge. It's going to be a good time!