How to Build a Winter Capsule Wardrobe | The Easy Way | Wardrobe Clusters - Nada Manley

I’m a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl. You may already know this about me, but I’m not much of a planner. But the world can be hard on us free spirits. While everyone is plotting out an entire year’s worth of goals and resolutions, we’re over here like: “Can we just figure out next week?”

All this to say that I don’t plan because I want to. I plan because I have to.

It’s the same way with capsule wardrobe. I developed this system after years of frustration, in which I bought all of the pieces that everyone said I needed (and many more that were just random) and wondered why my wardrobe was never cohesive, versatile, or effortless.

What was I doing wrong?

Then one day, I read about the Cluster Concept in a dusty old book I found at the used book store. Turns out, it had been around for years, and offered a much more achievable and realistic way to build a wardrobe. Sure, the vintage version needed some tweaking, so I took the concept, updated it and made it work for my needs, and ran with it.

Since then, the Cluster Concept has been one of the most popular things that I’ve taught both on YouTube and in my Facebook group. It’s a game-changer because of its versatility, simplicity, and ease.

It works whether you’re an experienced capsuler or don’t even know what a wardrobe capsule is.
It works whether you’re a minimalist or a maximalist (like me!).
It works whether you merely want to update your wardrobe for the season or start over after a major life (weight, geographic) change.
It just works.

Each Cluster consists of the following 6 pieces, all of which can be mixed and matched with each other to create 12 possible outfits.

A Cluster serves as a building block of your wardrobe, and the real magic happens when you start to stack one cluster on another cluster, and your outfit options increase exponentially.

In today’s video, I created 2 clusters using 12 items I found at Dillard’s. This cluster would suit anyone with Soft, Light, or Warm coloring, and can be adjusted to meet your needs, lifestyle, and budget.

All of the items in this cluster can be found in this catalog.

Here are some cluster rules to consider:

Choose one category (tops, bottoms, or jackets) to add pattern for maximum versatility. So for example you can do solid bottoms and jackets and patterned tops.
The more color and pattern you use, the fewer options you might have, and that’s ok. You just have to know that going into it.
Planning ahead can help you maximize the pieces you bring into your wardrobe and avoid any shopping mistakes.

After picking your pieces, play with outfit possibilities to see if your cluster works, and if you would genuinely wear these pieces together. Here are just a few of my the outfit possibilities that I can create using the clusters above.