Wardrobe Taming — Day Seven

Wardrobe taming series:
Day One Day Two Day Three Day Four Day Five Day Six Day Seven Day Eight

Okay my darling, it’s time to organise that closet!

Now, I know you have a few piles in your bedroom or living room or wherever. I’d like you to subtract the items you’ve worn this week — the stuff that you previously thought was unwearable or an impossibility, but has proven otherwise. Hopefully many of those items have proven themselves to be worthy of the space they take up. Put them back in your closet with everything else that you normally wear with no fuss.

You will still probably have a few things on your bed. Some of these you might wear at some point in the future, but you need to be really honest with yourself. Can you really imagine yourself rocking that neon orange muumuu? If you can, hang it up with everything else & make a resolution to wear it in the next week.

Look at the things on your bed which you’ve decided you will probably never wear. What are they, & why will you never wear them? Take notes in your clothing journal (for future reference), then take those items & put them in a big shopping bag. We’re going to deal with those tomorrow.

It is now time to organise your closet! Have a good breakfast, put on some excellent music, & get to it!

Things to keep in mind:

Organise your clothing by colour & type
If you do this, it means you always know where things will be & where they go when you’re done wearing them. Put all your black stuff together — black shirts, black skirts, black trousers. Then your other colours. This will make your life about a million times easier, both in terms of putting an outfit together & finding things!

If you don’t have the storage space, buy some
If you have to go to IKEA & pick up a chest of drawers, do so. An over-stuffed closet is a joke, you will never find anything & everything in it will be crushed beyond recognition anyway. Other things you can buy include shoe hangers, shelves, baskets & pegs. I tend to hang up my most expensive/delicate things, & then fold everything else in my chest of drawers. I also have a unit of wire baskets & each one holds a different type of thing — scarves, belts, slips, hats, etc.

Sort by season
If you have the space, put away the clothes you’re not going to need this season. In summer, I tend to put away my heaviest sweaters because I know they’re not going to get any use. I stash mine in plastic bins in the bottom of my cupboard, & of course, you should always use any moth-repelling devices you have!

Get rid of your old hangers
If you have any wire hangers languishing in your closet — or if everything you own is on a wire hanger — give yourself a slap on the hand & then throw them away. Wire hangers are devastatingly bad for your clothes. They will wear out the shoulders of your garments & they stretch & distort clothing. Get rid of them, they’re nasty! You want either wooden hangers or padded ones. There’s not really any excuse for not buying good hangers — if you’re buying an expensive coat, the least you can do is drop a few bucks on hangers which are going to maintain your clothing. You can buy big packs of them at IKEA & other places. Do it now!

Other tips
Never hang wool — it loses its shape! Keep your shoeboxes, stack them & stick a Polaroid photo on the front. Make sure everything has a place! Otherwise you’re going to spill over into closet craziness all over again. Invest in a full-length mirror if you don’t have one. How else can you see what you look like?! Try to ensure your closet gets adequate light. Sometimes just placing a lamp near the wardrobe makes an enormous difference. Make sure all your hangers face the same way. Do up the top button of every hanging item, it will help hold its shape. If you share a closet with your partner or someone else, assign yourselves one side each.

Extra For Experts:
12 Secrets of the Closet Pros from realsimple.com.
Top Ten Tips for Organizing The Closet of a Highly Successful Person