The Suitcase Problem
One of the things I love most about travel is that it reveals what actually matters. Before a trip begins, it is very easy to convince yourself that you need everything. Every possible version of the journey seems to require its own outfit, its own mood, its own carefully planned identity. A walking tour through a historic city feels different from an afternoon spent wandering through museums. A train ride feels different from a long dinner. A day spent exploring markets and cafés feels different from an evening concert. Looking at an open suitcase before departure, it is easy to imagine that each of those moments deserves something entirely separate.
And yet, no matter how many times I travel, I always end up discovering the same thing. The garments I remember most clearly are rarely the ones I packed for a specific occasion. Instead, they are the pieces that follow me throughout the trip, adapting themselves to different circumstances and activities. A favorite top appears in photographs taken days apart because it worked just as well wandering through a city as it did sitting on a train. A jacket packed almost as an afterthought becomes indispensable simply because it seems capable of accompanying whatever the day decides to become.
A few summers ago, Charlie and I took a longer trip through Paris and Zurich. By that point we had already traveled extensively together, and after years of trial and error I finally felt like I had learned how to pack strategically. We had concerts planned, museum visits, dinner reservations, theme parks, train rides, shopping excursions, and plenty of unstructured time simply wandering wherever curiosity happened to take us. The activities were incredibly varied, but I did not want to bring an entirely different outfit for every scenario. Instead, I wanted a suitcase filled with pieces that could be recombined into multiple outfits, creating variety through relationship rather than quantity.
Looking back now, that trip stayed with me much longer than I realized at the time. Before House of Caswell existed, I had already become fascinated with the idea that a relatively small number of thoughtfully curated pieces could create far more possibilities than a closet full of unrelated garments. I wasn't thinking about designing a collection yet, but I was beginning to understand something that would eventually become central to Still Life.
Travel Taught Me How Clothes Actually Work
Travel has shaped nearly every creative chapter of my life, although not always in ways I immediately recognized. When I was a sophomore in college, I studied abroad in Alnwick, England for four months. It was my first time leaving the United States, and like most college students, I packed the clothing I thought I would need for everyday life. What I did not fully appreciate was how much traveling would happen while I was there.
Our program included weekly field trips throughout the United Kingdom, along with opportunities to travel elsewhere in Europe. Those trips became a crash course in understanding how clothing behaves in the real world. I learned very quickly that ancient cathedrals, castles, and historic churches are almost always colder than you expect. I learned that it is wise to have something slightly nicer tucked away in your suitcase because you never know when an unexpected dinner or evening performance might appear in your plans. Most importantly, I learned that the amount of enjoyment you derive from a travel experience is often directly connected to how comfortable you are in what you've chosen to wear.
A few years later, I learned an entirely different version of the same lesson while traveling on tour with Charlie's previous band. Touring is not leisurely travel. Most days involve driving, loading equipment, working through a show, and immediately heading toward the next destination. Showers become infrequent, sleep happens wherever it can, and comfort stops feeling like a luxury and starts feeling essential. You learn very quickly which garments support the realities of constant movement and which do not.
Although studying abroad and touring could not have been more different, both experiences taught me that clothing succeeds when it supports life rather than competing with it. Years later, as Charlie and I continued traveling together through places like Rome, Greece, Paris, Mexico, Zurich, Egypt, and beyond, those lessons continued evolving. Eventually I realized I was no longer thinking about clothing as individual garments. I was thinking about wardrobes, systems, and relationships between pieces. The more I traveled, the more I found myself becoming interested in how a small number of garments could create a surprising number of possibilities.
The Unexpected History of the Capsule Wardrobe
Today, the phrase "capsule wardrobe" feels almost unavoidable. Entire books have been written about it, and social media is filled with advice centered around owning fewer pieces that work together more effectively. The concept feels so familiar now that it is easy to assume it has always existed, but the reality is much more interesting.
For much of fashion history, women were not expected to dress through systems. Clothing was often organized around specific occasions and activities, with separate garments for daytime engagements, evening events, travel, entertaining, and countless other situations. Clothing was frequently treated as a collection of individual solutions rather than an interconnected wardrobe.
This is part of why Claire McCardell's work feels so revolutionary to me. Long before capsule wardrobes became a popular concept, McCardell was designing clothing that acknowledged the realities of women's lives. She understood that women worked, traveled, moved, entertained, and navigated increasingly active schedules, and she believed their wardrobes should support those realities rather than complicate them.
The more I learned about her work, the more I realized that many of the ideas people now associate with modern wardrobe building were already present in her philosophy decades earlier.
She was not simply designing dresses, she was designing possibilities.
Of all the designers throughout fashion history, Claire McCardell has become my greatest fashion design inspiration. Not necessarily because her garments look exactly like what I design, but because the philosophy underneath them feels so deeply aligned with how I think about clothing. She understood that garments should support a person's experiences rather than demanding that life bend itself around the clothing.
Many people associate the idea of a capsule wardrobe with Donna Karan's Seven Easy Pieces, and there is no question that concept helped introduce a new generation of people to the power of thoughtful wardrobe building. But the roots of that philosophy extend much deeper, and I think McCardell deserves far more recognition for the role she played in shaping the way many of us think about clothing today.
Those ideas stayed with me as I began designing Still Life.
How Still Life Was Designed Like a Travel Wardrobe
As much as I love the history behind Claire McCardell's ideas, what interests me most is seeing how those ideas continue to evolve through contemporary wardrobes and modern travel. Looking back now, I can trace many of the design decisions behind Still Life to that trip Charlie and I took through Paris and Zurich.
By that point, we had traveled enough that I finally felt prepared. We had tickets to see Elton John and visit Disneyland Paris. We had museum visits, tours, dinner reservations, train rides, and long days of exploring on foot. Zurich in particular is one of the most walkable cities I have ever visited, and I knew we would spend much of our time simply wandering through the city, shopping, discovering new places, and allowing curiosity to guide the day.
If I had approached packing the way I did when I was younger, I probably would have attempted to create a completely separate outfit for every activity.
Instead, I approached the suitcase differently.
I packed skirts, shorts, blouses, tanks, long-sleeves, t-shirts, skorts, flowy pajama-style pants, a cashmere sweatsuit for the train ride, a light raincoat, and one dress reserved specifically for our lunch reservation at Le Jules Verne inside the Eiffel Tower. What mattered was not the individual pieces themselves, but the fact that they worked together.
By the end of the trip, I realized something interesting had happened. I never wore the same exact outfit twice, yet I wore almost every piece in my suitcase multiple times. Rather than feeling limited, I felt surprisingly creative. Each morning became a process of recombining familiar elements into something slightly different, allowing me to feel distinct each day without needing an entirely separate wardrobe to accomplish it.
I had never felt so prepared for a trip.
Looking back now, that experience became one of the clearest inspirations behind Still Life. When I began designing the collection, I found myself thinking less about individual garments and more about the relationships between them. I wanted to create pieces that could interact with one another the same way the pieces in that suitcase had interacted with one another, generating variety through combination rather than through accumulation.
Last week's journal explored the idea of print mixing and the way different patterns can coexist when they share common colors, emotional atmosphere, and visual language. In many ways, this journal is a continuation of that conversation. The reason the prints within Still Life work together so naturally is because they all originated from the same source.
The entire collection began with a single original pastel painting.
Because every print was derived from that artwork, the colors naturally relate to one another. The scales vary and the motifs change, but underneath those differences they all belong to the same visual family. That shared foundation creates possibilities. A Veronica piece can be paired with Sophia. Bethany can be worn alongside Tatiana. Carly can interact with Gabriela. Different prints can be layered together because they are not truly strangers to one another.
The more I worked on the collection, the more I realized I was designing it the same way I packed that suitcase for Paris and Zurich. I wanted every piece to earn its place. I wanted every garment to contribute something unique while still participating in a larger conversation.
That, to me, is the real power of a thoughtfully designed wardrobe. It is not about owning less for the sake of owning less. It is about creating more possibilities from what you already have.
The Souvenirs We Wear
The older I get, the more I realize that the clothing I remember most vividly is rarely the clothing itself. What I remember is where I was when I wore it.
Travel seems to intensify that phenomenon.
Years after a trip ends, I may not remember every restaurant we visited or every street we walked down, but I often remember what I was wearing. Certain garments become attached to a trip, appearing in photographs, accompanying meaningful moments, and gradually becoming part of the memory itself.
Over time, those garments become a different kind of souvenir.
A skirt worn while wandering through Zurich carries something different than a skirt hanging unworn in a closet. A top worn on a train through France becomes connected to that journey. The garment becomes a container for memory, carrying fragments of places, conversations, photographs, and experiences long after the trip itself has ended.
In many ways, I think that idea sits at the heart of Artful Nostalgia.
I have often written about memory as something that accumulates in objects. A photograph can hold memory. A piece of artwork can hold memory. A song can hold memory. Clothing is capable of doing the same thing. Garments travel through our lives alongside us, collecting associations and stories until they become far more meaningful than the fabric they are made from.
That is part of what I hope for Still Life.
Of course I wanted the collection to be versatile. I wanted the prints to work together, the pieces to layer naturally, and the garments to create multiple possibilities from a relatively small number of items. But practicality was never the entire goal.
What I ultimately wanted was to create a collection capable of accompanying someone's experiences. I wanted these pieces to travel. I wanted them to appear in photographs years from now and remind someone of a favorite city, a meaningful conversation, a museum visit, a train ride, a celebration, or an afternoon spent exploring somewhere unfamiliar.
Because when I think about the best travel wardrobes, I think about memory.
I think about clothing that helps us participate fully in our experiences and then stays with us long after those experiences have passed. I think about garments that earn their place in our lives not because they are worn once, but because they continue finding new reasons to be worn again and again.
Perhaps that is the real purpose of a thoughtfully designed wardrobe. Not simply to give us something to wear, but to accompany us as we become who we are.
And if we are lucky, to carry a few of those memories forward with us.
An Invitation
As House of Caswell continues to evolve, I will continue sharing the stories, historical references, artwork, travel experiences, and design philosophies that shape each collection long before the finished garments exist.
If these reflections resonate with you, I invite you to explore the Still Life collection and discover how its pieces were designed to work together through color, print, versatility, memory, and movement. Whether you are packing for a trip across the world or simply moving through the rhythms of everyday life, my hope is that the collection encourages the same sense of creativity, adaptability, and connection that inspired it.
And if you would like to follow along more closely as future collections continue developing, I also invite you to join the Collector's List, where I share new journal entries, behind-the-scenes process work, collection updates, artwork, and the evolving philosophy behind House of Caswell as an exploration of wearable art, memory, travel, and Artful Nostalgia.
