The recent wave of capsule making and wardrobe planning has me pondering how we guess how frequently we will wear each item. And that leads me to wonder how often we over-estimate wear frequency, and to worry about how wardrobe overload makes a wardrobe less flexible.

I don't just mean that at some point the more choices we have the harder it may be to put outfits together, or even figure out what we have and where it is. That's a given.

Here's the thing.

If I'm thinking about buying a winter dress, I'm supposed to ask how often I'll wear it. Given the activities that might make me reach for a dress and how comfortable I am with repeats, maybe I say I'll wear it about 3 times a month over 6 months. And if I'm into CPW, I'll do the math and decide that wearing it like this for two years will cost me $4 per wear, and I'm ok with that, and I buy it.

What I'm less likely to factor in is how many other winter dresses are hanging in my closet. If I have eight others hanging there and they're going to be in rotation, I had better be wearing dresses just about every day all winter, or my expected use was fantasy, not to mention craziness in CPW.

I'm really bad about this with sweaters. For some it's jeans or tees or shoes.

The thing is, after a while this glut makes my wardrobe about as nimble as an air craft carrier. Even the classics go out of style or our sizes, colors, or personas change, before these items saw much wear.

We have to purge "good" hardly used stuff to make room for what we really want to wear now. Even if we don't have huge wardrobes by current standards.

Personally I'm ok with a little of that, but then past a point I get rankled. I feel environmentally, fiscally, and even morally (Bangladesh?) irresponsible.

If I will factor in not just how often I could wear something but how much competition for love a new item has already in the closet, I know I will end up with not just a tighter wardrobe but the ability to respond more easily to the many influences that change what I want to wear season to season.

If I will look at the whole picture for each garment type, the budget, the closet space, and the conscience should not already be so tied up in the past.

If I will realistically wear 2 dresses over a winter I will own around 2 and not 4 or 11.

I know this is an offshoot of the 1 in 1 out principle, but still I haven't taken it to the point where I know that I can rotate 5 sweaters (or whatever the number is) in good use all season. I want to know that's my magic number, and I can manage to that and don't just tell myself I can use another sweater because blah-de-blah and I wear them every day so it's justified.

That's where I want to be, knowing my real sweet spots for rotation so there is enough but not too much. Then when I feel the need to dress differently somehow next season (color, line, persona, etc) I will have already loved and used what I have well, even if they still have life in them. A new purchase will make sense then, and everything will be getting wardrobe love.

I'm just starting with the 33 piece collection challenge that Adelfa posted about recently, and that should help. Still, I feel this issue is the biggest logic hole in my wardrobe planning, the biggest cause of waste and eventual frustration.

Are you guys already there with knowing and shopping to your usage sweet spots? How did you get there? Is this even the kind if thing you think about in your wardrobes?