Anne, maybe I have misunderstood your posts. My apologies. I seem to remember a number of posts where you had items not working together very well, where people were telling you "It would look good if you had this or that," (and you had no "this" or "that") or they were suggesting that you adjust proportions and you felt unable to do that with what was in your closet.
I thought that in this post, you were expressing frustration about that, but perhaps I was simply projecting. I know in my own first year or two on YLF, people sometimes made (kindly intended) suggestions that I simply couldn't put into effect (e.g. "This would look good with different footwear," when my budget didn't allow new footwear, or "Do you have a different top?" when, NO, I did not have a different top!) And sometimes I felt sad or frustrated about that.
Anyway, it sounds as if you're not as worried about the work capsule as I thought. And that is great news!
Your clothes do not look boring to me. Most of them (the grey dress excepted) have detail (especially ruffles and draping). In my closet, that would make them harder to pair with other things over the long term. Items with clean lines are easier for me to mix with one another. But maybe that's not true for you. I do know that if I wear the same six or seven outfits five days a week for months and months, I definitely get bored, no matter how much inherent interest the clothes may have. So that is probably a factor as well.
I think what I hear people saying is that without the simple, clean lined backbone capsule, the "playing" and "fun" is much harder to do successfully over the long term. Especially if you are on a very tight budget. Because the "fun" pieces are the "trend" pieces -- and the trends usually involve a switch up of silhouettes. Until and unless you have a strong core of simple fluidly tailored current pieces to use as your backbone, it's harder to pick and choose trends that work for you well.
