I said this to myself more than once in the first year: “Why bother dressing up? Nobody sees me anyway.” I thought it with a baby on me and two more small people pulling at the rest. Then one morning I put on a wrap top instead of the stained tee, for no reason, and my eldest said I looked like a mummy from the telly. I laughed. I also noticed I stood up straighter for the rest of the day.

That was the first time I understood that getting dressed on purpose was not vanity. It was a small act of looking after the person who was looking after everyone else, and I had been skipping it for months because nobody had given me a way to do it in four minutes with one hand. So I built one. Nine pieces that all open, all go together, and follow one formula, so that dressing stops being a decision and starts being a habit.

This is the spine of every capsule I have built since, for summer, for work, for travel, for the first weeks home. Learn the nine and the formula once and you can rebuild it in any colours, from any shop, for any season, for the rest of your feeding year.

1. The clip-down nursing tank

Everything starts here. A tank that clips down at the strap goes under every other top, so when the shirt unbuttons or the wrap unties there is still a layer between you and the room. One pale, one dark. It is the single piece that turns a normal wardrobe into a nursing wardrobe.

Long in the body, wide in the strap, soft enough to sleep in. Ten outfits around one nursing tank is the proof of how far it goes.

2. The button-front shirt

Three buttons undone from the top is a feed. Worn open over the tank it is a layer. Tied at the waist it is a top. A white or chambray shirt is the most adaptable thing you will own in this season, and it never looks like nursing wear.

It also photographs well, which matters more than anyone admits when a grandparent has a phone out.

3. The wrap top

A wrap opens at the front with no button and ties where your waist is this week. It is the piece that makes a soft trouser look like an outfit and a tired face look rested, as long as the colour is kind: dusty rose, soft blue, burgundy. Every capsule I build has one, and it is always the piece mamas tell me they wore most.

Six effortless outfits with a wrap top if you want to see it do its work.

From the capsules

The Year Round Capsule

Two hundred nursing-friendly outfits from fifty-six pieces, fifty for every season, laid out and then worn. $29 once, yours to keep.

See the capsule →

4. The V-neck tee

Relaxed, soft, in ivory or a stripe. It lifts from the hem or pulls aside at the neck, over the tank, in two seconds. It is the top for the days with nothing to say to the mirror. Buy it a size up if the old one pulls across the chest; the shape comes from the fit, not from being small.

One stripe in the capsule does the work of three plain tees, because it is the thing that looks deliberate.

5. The soft-waist trouser

Wide or straight, with a waistband that is elastic at the back and flat at the front, so it sits above a scar and never rolls. Taupe or navy. This is the bottom that forgives, and it takes every top above it.

If you are between sizes, this is the trouser to buy; the waist moves with you for a year.

6. The dark jeans, in the size you are

Not the ones from before. Dark straight-leg denim with stretch and a mid rise, bought in the size you are this month. Dark because it hides what the day does; straight because it balances a middle that is still carrying more. The jeans are not a measurement of you, and the label can come out.

Ten postpartum outfits built on one pair of jeans show the range.

7. The dress that opens

Button-front or wrap, midi length, in a colour that works for a Tuesday and a christening. One piece between you and the world, no waistband, and it opens at the front like everything else here. It is the appointment, the lunch and the day you want to feel like a woman rather than a feeding station.

A dress is usually the cheapest thing in a secondhand shop, because people let them go easily. Let them.

8. The cardigan

Fine knit, longline, in ivory or taupe. The indoor coat, the feeding cover, the plane blanket, the thing on the back of the chair. Buttoned to the middle only, so it comes off with one hand while the other holds a baby. Over the wrap top and the trousers it makes the whole outfit look chosen.

Nine ways to wear a long cardigan while nursing if you doubt one layer can do that much.

9. The shoe you can walk a baby to sleep in

Clean white sneakers. That is the ninth essential, and it carries almost every outfit in this list. The second shoe changes with the season, a taupe sandal or a flat ankle boot, but the sneaker is the constant. Flat, because you are carrying a person.

Heels will still be there when you want them. They are not part of the nine.

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The formula: one dark, one pale, one that opens, one layer, the shoe

Here is the part that makes nine pieces into twenty-five outfits. Every morning: one dark piece, one pale piece, one piece that opens at the front, one soft layer if the weather asks, and the shoe. Dark jeans, ivory tee, shirt open over it, sneakers. Taupe trousers, wrap top, cardigan, sandals. Navy dress, cardigan, boots. You never have to think past the formula, and nothing you pick can clash, because the nine were chosen to agree.

This is the formula underneath the Year Round Capsule, where it has grown to fifty-six pieces and two hundred outfits across the seasons, every one laid out and then worn with a note on how it opens. The nine here are the seed of it. If you want the whole tree, it is there.

I am a mom of three and I have never gone back to the body or the closet I had before the first one. What I have instead is nine pieces that open and a formula that dresses me in four minutes with one hand, and that small habit has done more for how I feel in a day than I would have believed in the year I thought nobody saw me. Somebody always sees you. It is worth being you when they do.

If you want the outfits already laid out so you can copy one tonight, the Year Round Capsule has two hundred of them, three pictures of you in them are on the house, and it is $29 once. If you want someone to tell you what to wear each morning from the clothes you actually own, that is Anah, every day, inside the Atelier. And if you want to start with something free, Nine takes three pieces from your wardrobe and shows you nine outfits from them, on you if you add a photo.

Start with the tank. The rest follows. The focus is on you, mama.