For those who enjoy my long analytical posts, I gotcha right here. For those who don’t, *waves* — I get it, look forward to seein’ ya around other parts of the forum.

I’ve been doing some thinking about my fall wardrobe and how to organize/prioritize adding to/editing it. Thanks to La Pedestrienne for getting this discussion going on her recent thread.

Many of you will remember that I’m interested in dressing around seasonal capsules based on different color palettes. I really like this idea, but just gathering together all the clothes I own that fit my desired palette doesn’t always translate into a functional capsule.

I realized that even though I might have some items in the various colors of a given palette, I don’t necessarily have the right items or the right numbers for the capsule to really work. It hit me: a seasonal capsule is really just a collection of different color complements. MAJOR a-ha moment.

I spent some time thinking about HOW I like to create outfits — the balance between neutrals and colors, where on my body I like to put pops of color and value contrast, etc. — and also which colors I wanted to be major and minor elements of my capsule.

Then I worked out a loose rubric for the number of items I wanted in each complement. I think I may have shared this before but here is what I came up with:

Neutrals: 2+ bottoms, 2+ tops, 1-2 toppers, 2 shoes

Major colors: possibly 1 bottom, 2 tops, 1 topper, possibly 1 shoes, 2 scarves, jewelry

Minor colors: 1 top, 1 topper, 1 scarf and/or jewelry, possibly 1 shoes

Then, (NERD ALERT) I made a spreadsheet and input my existing collection of fall clothes to see where any holes and imbalances might lie. Screenshots from spreadsheet are below.

In the spreadsheet, colored cells (light green, light blue, lavender) indicate what I think are core items for building each complement, and gray cells are optional items. Where I own more than the “required” items they are listed in cells with white background.

Photo 1: Neutrals — Black, Navy/denim, Gray, Burgundy.

The first three of these seem fine. I would like to add 2-3 pairs of straight leg pants (likely black ponte, medium-wash denim, and dark gray/faded black denim). I can see that I *could* add more gray overall, and more gray and navy footwear, but this doesn’t feel like a high priority. I like to mix neutrals, and rarely wear “column of color” looks, so this collection of items feels pretty adequate.

But holy cow, major lack of burgundy. I’ll say that I’m actually not sure whether I want burgundy to be a “neutral” or a “major color” (I’m more drawn to the idea of burgundy bottoms and footwear than I am with most of the other non-neutral colors in this palette, BUT I also like the idea of wearing burgundy scarves/jewelry which I don’t feel I need for with black/gray/navy). In any case, building out a burgundy complement is a major priority — especially because it’s a color I’d like to wear heavily across multiple seasons. Tricky part is that there are a LOT of wrong burgundies out there (my right burgundy is very red, a bit purple, and not at all brown — almost like a dark raspberry, or black cherry kind of color).

Photo 2: Major colors — Teal, Forest/bottle green, Rose

Yes, teal and forest/bottle green can kind of shade into one another. That said, I see a need for tops, in teal, rose, and (as discussed above) burgundy. I would like at least some of them to be prints (esp. dark florals and paisley) because I know I like to create outfits by pulling a minor color from a print for a pop of color.

Photo 3: Minor colors — Plum, cornflower blue

These are in more decent shape than I would have thought. Still: Print tops.

Photo 3: Specials — White/cream, Cognac

I realized that I like to wear these colors, which would usually get classified as neutrals, in very specific ways. I really only like to wear white on top. And I like cognac footwear but that is the ONLY brown (save for that camel cardigan, which is an outlier but I do think it works) in my entire wardrobe. The white/cream situation seems fine (I should add some of my pearl jewelry to the spreadsheet). I am embracing cognac footwear as a signature in cool seasons — it semi-bookends my hair and is a good way of creating color contrast and “warming up” cool-toned outfits (I tend to wear mostly cool colors near my face). So, even though I already own several pairs, I think I could potentially add more.

That leaves me with my marching orders for the fall:

• BURGUNDY — across all categories of items
• Colorful tops, especially prints (burgundy, teal, rose, plum, cornflower)
• Straight-leg pants
• Cognac footwear

If you made it through this monster of a post, GOLD STAR! I hope it stimulates some helpful or interesting thoughts about your own wardrobe. Grateful for any musings, ideas, or suggestions you care to share.