How to Conquer Your Closet and Look Your Best
Since Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing sold over eight million copies in over 40 countries and stayed on the New York Times best-selling list for so long, it’s obvious that people around the world are plagued by clutter. I assume age doesn’t matter because clearing clutter is an ongoing situation.
In my recent blog post “How to Make More Outfits Out of What You Have,” I provided a list of the basic wardrobe items you need to have or buy for spring and summer. In this post, I am giving you tips and links to help you get rid of excess clothes that make it difficult to get dressed and look your best.
My closet isn’t like the beautiful, perfect ones you see online; but it’s not messy like the one above, either! Just like most of us, I have always changed over my closet twice a year from winter to spring and then from summer to fall. I take out the out-of-season clothes and store them; then I move the clothes needed for the coming season into the closet where I can reach them. For a simple way to accomplish this, see my post “How to Clean Out Your Closet for Spring in 6 Easy Steps.”
Organize First
Previously, I had written about certain closet organizing tricks. They were:
- Organize by color. Within each category (tops, pants, skirts, dresses, toppers, suits) separate your clothes by color.
- Replace hangers with higher quality hangers of all one type and one color.
- Turn the hangers all one way, and then after you wear each piece, turn the hanger the opposite way. At the end of the season, see which items of clothing you didn’t wear and get rid of them.
- Use shelf dividers to keep your clothes stacked neatly on shelves. This also allows you to put more than just a few items in each pile.
I’ve tried all of the above and am happier since I tried them. But they don’t solve the clutter problem.
As Christine Barberich said in “Stacy London ‘What Not to Wear-ed’ My Closet”:
“Stacy really couldn’t care less about the right hangers, fancy bins, or, actually, any of the accoutrements that make you feel organized. Other than keeping my hangers to one color (black), I have to agree with her. For Stacy, and for me, too, it’s the stuff you wear (or don’t) that matters most. And so, without as much as a peruse, she immediately zeroed in on what would be the first lesson of the day: Closet categories.”
Once you have your clothes grouped by categories, it’s easier to know what you have and how much.
Editing What You Have
Once your clothes are organized, you can remove the excess. If you’ve ever heard of the 80-20 Rule, 20% of what we have gets used 80% of the time.
- Simplify your repeats. When you have too many of one thing, like white shirts or black pants, choose the one you go to over and over.
- Scale back the accessories. Use Kondo’s KonMari method and decide which accessories you love and let the rest go.
- Let it go! Barberich says, “Your true self doesn’t lie when it comes to trying on clothes. In our hearts, we know when something is awesome and sparking our soul, and when it’s not. When it brings out the best in us, makes us vibrate with self-love — or does just the opposite.” So if you can’t decide if you love something enough to keep it, try it on and only keep what makes you feel wonderful.
I have mentioned before that I am not one for a minimalist wardrobe, but I do need to continually edit what I have. I found an article by Project 333 called “33 Things to Eliminate from Your Closet.” It began, “If you aren’t ready to dress with only 33 items, why not eliminate 33 items from your closet? Consider it the reverse Project 333.” I printed out the list and if you’d like to do the same, just click on the link to the article above.
I hope this was helpful! What have you tried to get your wardrobe to work for you? Was it successful? Let us know by leaving a reply below.
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Angie
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