Confession: I hate pants. I really hate them. And for a really long time I only wore pants because I was trying to disguise my leg. I have lymphedema and have gone through periods of my life where I have been very self conscious about it and have done my damnest to hide it. But in the past five years I’ve realized that I hate pants and the way they make me uncomfortable (the only ones loose enough for me to wear comfortably are bell-bottoms and many stores don’t carry this cut) and anxious (leg prison much?). More importantly I’ve realized that if wearing skirts and dresses make me physically comfortable (free the leg!) I should work hard to make that comfort a mental one as well (this has not been easy). Sure, wearing skirts, shorts, or — my go to — dresses invite questions that sometimes I am too weary to answer, but the take away for me is that I feel physically comfortable and enjoy wearing dresses more than pants!
One of the reasons I wasn’t sure I could do a capsule wardrobe was that many capsules that I had been looking at for inspiration were separate heavy and I totally get why! You can do so much more with separates — there are so many combinations of different top and bottom items especially when you have a lovely neutral colour palette like Un-Fancy, Harben Porter, and instagram’s @__blackengrey
But what is a girl to do when she hates pants? I tried hard to embrace the pant and stepped outside of my comfort zone with my Spring Capsule by including not one, not two, but three pairs of pants and while I saw the unlimited potential of mixing tops with bottoms, I never felt comfortable and came to the realization that I don’t just dislike pants but thoroughly hate them. The spring capsule outfits I had planned involving pants got shifted to the end of my cycle: meaning that I ended up wearing pant-driven outfits a lot at the end of each month, having put them off all month.
So, for my summer capsule I only have one pair of structured pants: this pair of Gap jeans that have a cute zipper at the bottom (which I need to use to expand the bottom of my left pant leg when my leg is a bit more swollen than usual). The rest of my capsule is mostly skirts and dresses (I will link to my full capsule when I post about it next week).
So, in honour of my one pair of pants, today’s #ootd involves jeans and an East Coast Lifestyle tee that my brother bought me! In general I don’t love t-shirts — in fact when I wore my Tolkien tee as part of my spring capsule one of my colleagues said “woah, you are wearing a t-shirt!? I didn’t think you owned or wore t-shirts.” As I’m not super into brand-emblazoned tees, I love the small detail on the pocket.
I also threw on my blazigan because today was rainy and cool and dressed the whole ensemble up with more colour with my Bizou necklace.
Does anyone else hate pants? Do you have alternatives? Have you built a capsule with very few separates?
Kala's Colourful Capsule 
I think if Capsules are going to be successful they need to be full of the things that make you feel amazing. I’m learning to tune out background noise so that I can make my capsule work for ME. I actually wrote about this very thing in my latest post on Truncation Blog. I’d love for you to check it out!
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Thanks Karin! I love your blog — you talk about all of the things that I can’t quite figure out how to say eloquently (such as, man, do I look dorky/ hate posing for my #ootd and blog post photos). 🙂
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Love the term “blazigan!” I’d say that separates just seem to be more effort in general – I lean towards dresses or monochrome/single color outfits these days (possibly too much?)
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Thanks Cat! I, too, love the term “blazigan” 🙂 I also find separates more effort and feel that I am constantly tugging the different components into their proper place just so. I also feel that when I wear separates if I take off one of the layers (inevitable in Hfx climate) then the “look” doesn’t amount to much and I feel sloppy and sweaty. I love monochrome/single colour outfits!!
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