Stay At Home Mom Style- Simple Summer Capsule Wardrobe

Let me tell you, I used to have stay at home mom style down pat. I loved clothes! My first blog, which started ten years ago (a few months after my oldest was born), was a mom style blog.

High Heeled Mama, whaaaat.

I was brutally offended when a friend suggested to me that I would stop wearing white pants once I had kids. I mean, did she even know me?

Honestly, stay at home mom style wasn’t even a question. I would have it, for. sure.

Stay At Home Mom Clothes Style

Isn’t it adorable how much you know before you have kids? And really, even after you have one kid, you can be tempted to think you’ve got the mom gig down. In style, no doubt.

For me, personally, I lost my style somewhere in the fifteen months between my second and third kiddo. I was eager to fit into homesteader style, or what I thought it was, despite the fact that we didn’t really have a homestead, yet.

I gave away or sold close to 100 shoes in the move from there to here, from suburbs to country, and I was ready to embrace plain and simple and boring.

Stay at home mom style? I didn’t even have “could be seen out at walmart” style.

Post-partum/anti-partum depression didn’t help. Being friendless wasn’t a huge benefit. Isolating myself for days turned into a week or better, at a time, wasn’t the best choice.

My stay at home mom style went from fashion blog status to stained, ratty t-shirts that used to belong to my husband.

It’s hard to feel good about yourself when you’re strutting around in clothes that should have been retired years ago and every room in your house has a mirror for a closet door. Thank you, previous owner of the new house we moved into.

Why do moms need a style?

Like a lot of other areas of my life (read my about page here), I tried to convince myself that it was wrong to care about what I wore.

Good Christian lady that I am, I knew that beauty is fleeting and skin starts sagging, and someday, all of the lucky ones will be old despite themselves.

And so, like a modern day pharisee, in order to ensure my looks were not an idol of mine, I went three steps beyond that. I made sure they were not even on my mind. That I had no “looks” to think of.

Except that they were on my mind. More than ever.

My style, or lack thereof, was crushing my soul. I was declining invites for lack of anything to wear. I was skipping church because the only thing that could hide my third baby belly couldn’t hide my third baby boobs.

My whole life was beginning to revolve around my style in the worst way possible.

But how can a mother look stylish?

So, here I am in the middle of “I know I need to put more effort into how I present myself each day” and “but how does stay at home mom style evolve?”

Like, how can a mother look stylish without looking totally out of place for her job at home?

It’s lovely and all, to think of the 1950’s housewife vacuuming her living room in a dress and high heels, coifed hair, lipstick on.

But I don’t wear dresses. And what even is a coif?

Luckily, I’m finding that moms can carry themselves in a polished, stylish manner, without having to be dolled up. It’s okay to have a personal style and still leave your house without make up on.

A mother can look stylish just by looking like she’s showered recently, put a brush through her hair sometime this past week, and considered her tasks for the day in the outfit that she’s selected.

My stay at home mom style

My stay at home mom style is currently evolving. I like to believe I’ve put together a summer capsule wardrobe, SAHM edition, but really I’ve just decluttered my closet like ten times in the last six months.

I’m down to limited selections by default, not necessarily design.

Lately, however, I have been giving more thought to what is in my closet and whether or not I allow it to take up residence for the long haul.

For instance, I just put a shirt that I do wear in the giveaway pile because I don’t feel great in it. I just wear it because it fits. Kind of.

So, that feels like “curating my style”, to me.

Basically, my summer capsule wardrobe as a stay at home mom, has come together by creating gaps in my closet and then filling them in much more intentionally.

Can it even be called a capsule wardrobe, though, if you have fifteen pairs of pants and fifteen shirts? And you didn’t count the tank tops separately, but rather lumped them together as occupying one shirt space?

*Sigh*

Girl, I’m telling you, I have made strides in downsizing and decluttering.

Even if my stay at home mom summer capsule wardrobe is excessive to some, it is bare essentials for me right now.

What is a capsule wardrobe, anyways?

A capsule wardrobe is a collection of clothing, usually minimal clothing, which works well together. It’s a style of wardrobe curating most often embraced by minimalists.

The essence of a capsule wardrobe is this: any top works with just about any bottom and any shoe. You stop having to think so hard about what to wear, and you stop having to change so many times because something doesn’t go together.

And- and this is major- you are deliberate to make sure everything in your wardrobe fits properly, makes you feel good, and feels like totally like you.

What is in my stay at home mom summer capsule wardrobe?

Bottoms:

• 3 pairs of shorts (although to be honest, I’ve got my sights set on a fourth pair in my Amazon cart.)
• 5 pairs of jeans. So, yea, I could definitely do away with about three of them, down here in the heat of Virginia.
• 1 pair of white pants because #summerstaple
• 2 pairs of culottes
• 1 pair of wide leg linen pants

Tops:

• 3 button up long sleeves (but lightweight, so… Ima hold onto them.)
• 3 button up short sleeves
• 3 linen tops of varying sleeve lengths
• 2 blouses which may yet be kicked out of rotation
• 1 white t-shirt
• 1 graphic t-shirt (I’m going to be purchasing at least two more, t-shirts are my jam)
• 1 dressy tank top
• 5 tank tops for wearing under other tops. I count them as one. It’s my capsule wardrobe and I’ll do what I want.

Other:

• 1 black jumpsuit, culotte style
• 1 black maxi dress. I keep it around but if I don’t reach for it, this summer, it won’t be here next summer!
• Mustard colored cardi
• Striped linen jacket that gets more wear than I even bargained for
• Jean jacket
• Terry cloth zip up
• Black open short sleeve sweater
• Kimono

And:

• Oversized cognac leather bag that I wear with everything and take everywhere
• Nude slides
• Nude strappy flat sandals (known to my husband as my “Jesus sandals”)
• Cognac low heeled sandals
• Snakeskin low heeled mules
• Nude high heels, for date nights only
• Camo sperry’s
• White sneakers

My stay at home mom style is in progress

So… If I take away four of my jeans (which I will), keep my blouses and add two more t-shirts, and continue to lump all of my under tanks into one tank top position, I have 41 pieces included in my summer capsule wardrobe.

But, come on now, when someone rediscovers their personal style, they almost never settle for just what they already have.

On my “want to buy” list:

• A straw fedora. You guys, I used to wear one all the time and I promise I’m still cool brave enough to wear one around!
• I’d like a baseball cap that actually fits my head and looks good with short hair.
• The shorts I have my eyes on are destroyed black denim bermudas. (update: got em!)
• I also think I’m ready for neutral, natural material bracelets again. It used to be a thing with me. I’m going to embrace it once more.
• Lastly, I could use a new pair of white sneakers and Birkenstocks. My berks are now barn wear.

Which reminds me, I did not include my barn clothes in my summer capsule wardrobe for obvious reasons. No matter how cute posed pictures look of homesteading women collecting vegetables from the garden in their white flowy dresses, I prefer to keep my white ensembles…white.

It turns out that that friend I mentioned previously was right. I would stop wearing white without anxiety for a season.

Do you have a specific stay at home mom style? What are your thoughts on the capsule wardrobe?