Too many clothes - want a 'capsule' wardrobe. How many of each item is essential?

[futuremoneyinbank]

As above really! I've just decluttered my t'shirt drawer and still have 10 t'shirts, 10 strappy vest-tops, 4 crop tops and 6 short sleeved going out tops (this is just short sleeved drawer, not incl tops to be hung up in wardrobe!). I'm sure I don't "need" all of these but how do you whittle down? I've got rid of all old/bobbled/armpit nasty/shapeless/doubles...

Is it better to lay out on the bed entire outfits and see what matches/can mix? How many outfits would you have and how do you distinguish them? Do you have "school run" and "holiday" and "evening" outfits or items or do you wear them in a mix? Sorry to sound clueless!

I do 2 hours of dog walking every day too so can't always swan about in lovely wide legged trousers and espadrilles but that effortless chic is the plan! In my 20's I had a lovely wardrobe with barely anything in it but everything matched and was largely sourced from charity shops! I seem to have lost myself after 10 kids of child raising and Amazon fashion rather than going into town to try things on!
TIA

10 years, not 10 kids! Eep!

Following.

I think it kind of depends on what you like to wear. Some people might have say four tops but 15 dresses. I wear a top and jeans every day basically so have lots of them and no dresses or wide leg trousers etc.

I think it’s helpful to think about how often you intend to wash your clothes too.

I had a very bare bones wardrobe for a while and I had three short sleeve tshirts, two shirts and two long sleeve tshirts. It was doable in terms of always having something to wear, but I got bored of it pretty quickly. Shirts are good as I find them quite versatile. They're good for work, casual and going out, depending on how you style them.

I think having multifunctional pieces helps a lot. So going out tops which cannot really be worn day to day, I'd probably keep to an absolute minimum if you're going for a small capsule.

Have a really close look at your lifestyle. Dog walking/ exercise clothes might be things you wear everyday, do you wear them just for walking or for the rest of the day? How smart are you the rest of the time? Are nights out usually pub based or something more formal?
I've found that although I love going out clothes, I hardly ever wear them, so I don't need many. What I do need is decent quality day-to-day stuff, clothes that are easy to move around in and versatile. No trailing sleeves or easily stained fabrics, but for me it's worth spending on eg black cashmere jumper that I wear several times a week and works for most events in my life.
You say you have lots of T-shirts and vests, do you wear them as extra layers as well as by themselves? It doesn't sound like you've got too many, but you could cut down to 5 of each iif storeage is an issue. There will always be some items that you pick to wear instead of others- are some of the others not quite good enough duplicates?
I'm not at all convinced by capsule wardrobes, it's fine if you are starting from scratch but why throw out perfectly good clothes? Unless you know you don't like them.

Some useful replies here. Interesting about the going out clothes mentioned. I too have too many, though I don't go out lots. There is a Blogger on Wardrobes (Adore your Wardrobe) who talks about how we often shop for our fantasy selves, rather than the life we actually live. I did a free course with her, where I worked out mathematically how much of each stuff I should have. I'm still wittling stuff down, not helped by the fact that I have too many sizes, but it was a helpful starting point. This is her facebook page

It depends on the T shirts and when you wear them. I'd call long sleeved T-shirts, T shirts! I wear those in the house all year round. Bretons, etc. I have more than 10, but some have short sleeves and are only for summer (especially white ones), some are what I wear for walking ( as in 'treking'), and the rest are casual to wear with jeans etc.

I think those kind of items are really useful but I can't understand people who own 15 pairs of jeans. I have around 4 pairs- one skinny, one girlfriend, two biker style not in denim but grey and black.

One trick is to monitor how you spend your days over the course of a fortnight to give you a lifestyle tally. So your list of days might look like this:
Office or home casual 8
Office smart 1
Non-work daytime smart 1
Running, cycling, or hiking 3
Gardening 0.5
Going out out <0.5

Then you can plan your ratios around those proportions. As pps have said, we tend to overestimate the number of evening ‘going out’ outfits needed!

Thanks for the replies, will be looking at that link in the morning @SpongeBobJudgeyPants !

I think I just always imagine everyone has their shit together on this front. Feels a bit weird feeling I was more on top of this at 20! I guess it's simpler when there's just work and going out to do!

Coats are a huge storage issue too...I seem to get a new one each year and forget I own decent ones already! Maybe an ottoman storage bed is the way forward instead

I did this a couple of years ago and I found it really great.
I had around 30 items for the capsule. I didn't include shoes because I don't own many, accessories, or jewellery.
First pull out the items you love wearing and seen to default to all the time. That might be 15. Then add in some tops if you have enough bottoms and vice-versa.
If you have 3 navy cardigans, only keep one out, 2 Breton tops even if you own 6.
Dispose of the rubbish but store the things you still like but just don't want in sight at the moment. I ended up taking 5 of my 30 and storing them because I found I wasn't wearing them.

@ToManderleyAgain has a more straightforward way of doing the mathematical thing, assuming the time period you use is typical clothes allocation for you. If it's any consolation OP, I don't have my clothes sh*t together either! I dreams of it though!

You need to consider several factors including weather and lifestyle as well as activity. For example, I have 10 cotton dresses. That's a lot, but in summer I will wear one a day, laundry once a week, leaves me a few spare if I need to change for a meal out etc.

I have 7 cardigans, but they cover a range of different temperatures.

I do regularly go through and get rid of things I don't wear so that I only have access to things I like and actually wear, which makes getting dressed a pleasure rather than a chore.