Tea Time in the Garden Capsule Wardrobe

No, I haven’t forgotten about the list of capsule wardrobes that I said that I’d do. They are for me to reach for both when I need something different to post and when I have the energy to put the post together. Because I’m hardly a wizard of photo editing, doing these takes me quite a bit of time and since I have my own photos to use, I want to capitalise on that.

This particular idea was sent to me by @ribbonandsugarplum and although it may not have been one to get me immediately excited, it turned out to be one that was incredibly easy to put together. It practically happened on its own, very little thought involved. Especially once that green Innocent World bolero was finally mine. It’s a very spring-appropriate capsule, so shame that spring is gone for me for the next three quarters of the year, but at least it will be ready and waiting for its time to shine.

THE CAPSULE

Everything except the ankle socks uses my own photos.

Like I said, this whole capsule came together practically instantly. Thinking about the theme, tea time in the garden, immediately led me to florals, to classic and country themes, to tea parties big and small, to something that a pretty fancy lifestyler and a truly elegant lady of leisure would wear. Once I identified the main pieces, it was almost instinctive to lean into the greens and pinks with only splashes of ivory for some colour balance and easy options.

And now that I actually see it all at once, I do see how this ticks all of those boxes. This capsule could easily take me from daily errands to very fancy tea parties, especially when supplemented by the smaller accessories. I’m excited to start playing with it and put together some coords!

COORDS

Baroque Repose of Queen Teatime Dress

Even though OPs are typically not very versatile, this one bypasses that by being short sleeved. That means much easier time layering something over or under it for extra versatility. There’s also the detachable overdress that I could use, though I don’t have a photo of that - but basically whenever you see a more OTT coord in this post, assume that using the overdress is a possibility.

Innocent World Georges Rose JSK

The beauty of this dress is that it really does blend in and mask as a vintage dress. Simple classy florals for when you want to attract less attention. Of course, I could’ve put something very extravagant with it, but chances are that with this capsule I’d save those ideas for other dresses. Or when really running out of options.

Violet Fane Charming Town skirt.

Similarly with this skirt, it’s there for the day-to-day looks. Granted, it would be harder to dress it up with the contents of this particular capsule than it would be with the Innocent World JSK, though it could be possible if I tried hard enough.

Angelic Pretty Flower Garden JSK.

One of my wardrobe’s outliers finally feels like it’s found a place where it fits in perfectly. It has a moment to shine here with all of these pieces and actually seeing these possibilities gets me quite excited for what I could do with this. Mind racing with ideas, I’ve only included the first four.

BtSSB Soiree of the Beginning of My Memories JSK.

Lastly something a bit more explicitly green to add to this mix. If this wasn’t a capsule or if I wasn’t so strict with myself on limits, I’d probably include the dark green shoes and headbow too, but that seemed excessive and too specific to this dress. So the light green and the pinks will have to do.

FINAL WORDS

The one thing that I’m the most impressed with about this capsule is how colourful it is. Even though in essence it is quite limited in terms of the actual colour palette used, it doesn’t look like it at a glance. Capsule wardrobes are by definition scaled down in terms of colours and prints, but with clever coordinating this doesn’t have to be obviously so. And florals are probably one of the easiest ways of masking that because even though the colours of and within the main pieces are a bit all over, the floral motifs tie them together and make the coloured supplementing pieces work for them all.

There are definitely coords in here that would’ve taken me time to come up with. As well as those that I’ve had at the back of my mind in some form or another already. I doubt that I’d ever need the whole capsule, though I guess if some particularly fancy springtime trip were to ever happen, this wouldn’t be a bad one to pack with me.