WTF? Yeah, I’ll say it again. I packed only twelve pieces of clothing (including shoes!) for a 10 day trip overseas. Of course I also had toiletries, undies, PJ’s, a separate outfit for the two long plane rides, one tote, an iPad, and makeup, but I was able to get EVERYTHING in one carry-on. I’m damn proud of it!
THE GOAL
The goal was to pack clothes that were comfortable and classic. I wanted as little thinking as possible when it came to my clothes. These pieces worked great for our trip to Japan in December. We went to celebrate our one-year anniversary / finally take our honeymoon. We’re calling it our hon-iversary 🙂
The color palette: gray, white, blue, and black — with a little pops of olive and pale pink. I brought 5 tops, 3 bottoms, 3 pairs of shoes, and 1 heavy cardigan in my carry-on. THATS IT!
THE FULL LIST
01 | Gray Chunky Cardigan
02 | Long-Sleeved White Textured Sweater
03 | Gray Crew Neck Sweater
04 | Denim Button Up
05 | Stripped Long Sleeve Tee
06 | 3/4 Length Pale Pink Tunic
07 | Boyfriend Jeans
08 | High Waisted Black Denim
09 | Olive Skinny Jeans
10 | Tan Ankle Boots
11 | Round Toe Leopard Flats
12 | Black Loafers
THREE LIFESAVERS
- I couldn’t have pulled this off without having created a mini-capsule. Scaling down my everyday winter capsule to a mini-capsule for a 10 day trip made this possible. I don’t believe I would have been able to accomplish this in my pre-capsule days. I wouldn’t even know where to start if you told me I could only take 12 pieces with me for 10 days. But again, the beauty of a capsule is that everything ideally should pair well together.
- PACKING CUBES! What an enormous difference this made in my overall packing experience. Everything was kept exceptionally well organized. Alex was so impressed with the packing cubes that as soon as we got home, I ordered him a set. I will never go on another trip again without the cubes.
- Cladwell. I’ve posted about this app before (read here), but honestly, Cladwell helped me organize and select a mini-capsule for our trip. Thankfully the weather in Japan mirrors the weather in Washington, DC so I didn’t have to dig through spring / summer clothes, I was able to pack what was already hanging in my closet.
With twelve pieces, Cladwell created 39 outfits in total. As always, it presents three options the morning of — taking the weather into consideration — and all I had to do was select from there. As for a purse, I took my large Madewell cognac everyday tote with me. So there was literally no thinking when it came to accessories because, NO OPTIONS!
REAL TIME FEEDBACK
If I were to do this over, I’d pack exactly the same items, except for the shoes. I should have known that with freezing temps, dainty leopard flats and black loafers wouldn’t be warm enough. In fact, I stuck to my ankle boots (and doubled up my socks!) almost everyday. Especially since we did so much walking around outside in the cold. If I were to go back and make any changes to the packing list, I’d leave the flats and loafers, packing my tall cognac boots instead. But honestly, if that’s the only change I’d make, I’d call this a successful run for a 10 day international vacation! In fact, I consider this one of my best packing lists to-date!