Wardrobe Essentials for Your Personal Style

It’s smart to consider what’s truly essential for our wardrobes to function each season. Wardrobe essentials are those components that are foundational to creating a variety of outfits easily. They’re not generally the most personality driven pieces, but they certainly should resonate with your personal style. Think t-shirts, tanks, jeans, solid trousers and necessary outerwear. You generally want to collect at least a small, interchangeable collection of these garments in neutrals that will work nicely with the colors you’ll be wearing. But it’s certainly okay if a few of your wardrobe essentials are also in your signature colors.

We’re continuing our Define Your Style…Refine Your Wardrobe style series with a consideration of wardrobe essentials for your personal style. If you’re new to the series, I suggest you start HERE. And you can always find the full series in the top menu of the blog. Also be sure you’ve at least begun to Define Your Personal Style and have read my Tips for How to Express Your Personal Style.

I’ve “played paper dolls” a bit and put together some style boards for inspiration for your personal style wardrobe essentials. Since I have no idea what your personal style is of course, I just threw together eight examples to get you started working on your own.

Personal Style Wardrobe Essentials Inspiration Boards

My Personal Style Wardrobe Essentials Inspiration Board

We’ll start with a board a put together to represent my own wardrobe essentials. This is not a complete list of my wardrobe essentials for my personal style, but simply a little inspiration. This way when I start shopping (of course I’ve already started!), I can make sure that other essentials I add would fit on this board, too.

I’ve used the three style angles effortless, elevated and classic. I’ve filled my wardrobe essentials board with things like basic tees and tanks, modern jeans, a few essential third pieces and basic footwear. I didn’t spend too much time on my own board because I wanted to focus more on the others I created with you in mind.

Really, these style boards are meant to be just for inspiration. I quickly ran through the newest spring lines at some of our favorite retailers where I knew I could get pictures of the items without the people wearing them. Not all retailers have those available, but they make the best style boards. So I used J.Jill, J.Crew, Banana Republic, Everlane, Gap and maybe a few things from other places. I’m linking items in the captions of the boards so you can shop them if you’re interested. But I didn’t have the time to hunt for best deals and such. I hope you’ll understand and take these boards for what they are meant to be: inspiration.

Let’s move on to some other style angle combinations. Maybe you’ll find something close to your own. Or maybe you can at least get a little inspiration and see how I used different styles to build essentials for varying style angles.

Style Angles: Feminine, Classic, Elegant

I tried to fill this board with items that looked soft and feminine, but that also would contribute a little elegance to outfits. I didn’t want anything with too many frills and ruffles, but the items needed to sort of flow and have a beautiful drape.

Remember, you can add more personality with the rest of your wardrobe purchases. But these essentials are the more “neutral” backgrounds upon which those personality-driven items will shine. Not only should these essentials be in mostly neutral colors, but they should have a neutral vibe to them.

Style Angles: Feminine, Sporty, Natural

The beauty of having three style angles is that they can express different parts of your personality. Here I was thinking about a woman who wants to look distinctly womanly, but also enjoys the outdoors and being active. I put together an essential style board for her everyday outfits, not hiking, gardening, etc.

I imagined that this woman would like to lean into dresses and skirts and only wear jeans when necessary. Then I added completer pieces that feel very down-to-earth, but also look soft and feminine.

Style Angles: Feminine, Modern, Minimalist

I frequently come across readers who tell me they only wear skirts and dresses. I think that is very admirable. So I created a style board with that in mind. I used the style angles feminine, but also modern and minimalist. I’m assuming not all dresses-only women are all ruffles and lace types.

I assumed this woman would want to look feminine, but also prefer clean lines and minimal details. She may not wear jeans or trousers, but she’ll still enjoy that pullover sweater over a dress or skirt, or she can wrap it around her shoulders or tie it around her waist. And I think every woman needs some sneakers, even if she rarely wears them.

Style Angles: Modern, Vibrant, Classic

The way I see it, with a word like “vibrant” in your style angles you probably like to wear a lot of color. But you still need the toned down wardrobe essentials for those colors to play against nicely. That’s why I filled this style board with modern, classic pieces mostly in neutrals with a few colors thrown in for good measure.

If one of your style angles is modern, you truly have to make some modern choices. Items like these retro sneakers, lantern jeans, wider leg trousers, denim midi skirt and cargo pants keep this capsule modern and still classic. I would say the trick would be to wear an outfit with something vibrant, something more classic and toned down and something more modern.

Style Angles: Modern, Western, Feminine

These style angles may seem all over the place, but that’s the beauty of having three. I’ve put together a style board of essentials that would help this woman put together western inspired outfits that still look modern and also have a feminine touch.

By the way, denim skirts continue to trend this year, and denim dresses have joined them. And I also want to point out that we now have a code for Patricia Nash Designs. So if you love Patricia Nash, be sure to use code KAY10 only at Patricia Nash Designs.

Style Angles: Classic, Edgy, Modern

Let’s take quite the turn now to something a little edgier. This board is filled with very basic pieces, but they lean toward black and grey for this edgy, modern woman. Add personality with accessories and garments that have studs, leather trim, etc. But keep the essentials very clean and minimal for a modern vibe.

Remember to look for wardrobe basics that will serve multiple purposes. I like to be able to wear my wardrobe essentials in at least three outfits and to at least three different places. That’s what makes them essential!

Style Angles: Classic, Relaxed, Uncomplicated

And for our final inspiration style board, I gathered wardrobe essentials for a classic woman who also prefers to put together looks that are relaxed and uncomplicated. No frills, ruffles, extraneous hardware or fussy designs here.

Again I chose pieces in easy-on-the-eyes neutrals. And the fabrics have interesting and various textures rather than a lot of designs.

I do hope this was helpful to you. I wish I could have done more. It was so much fun to put this post together for you, but it also took much longer than I anticipated. Thanks so much for dropping in!

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next up, Define Your Style for Your {Real} Lifestyle (click to access)