The seasons are changing and I usually find it’s a great time of year to have a refresh of my wardrobe.
This time not only was it the swap between summer and winter, but I also used the technique shared by the fabulous Dilly Carter aka declutterdollies which meant a completely new way of looking at what clothes / shoes / accessories I actually had, along with completely re-organising how they looked and were stored. Including looking at the space – does everything work logically? am I able to make easy & quick decisions about what to wear each morning? is it easy to pack when I’m going away? It’s really important before we even start that we have a clear objective about why we’re doing this.
First up: get everything out! That means all the drawers, all the cupboards, empty the rails. Anywhere else in the house you might have things of yours (coats, shoes, bags…) they also need to be emptied and brought to one place to sort.
Second: we need to give everything a quick clean, get the hoover out, wipe down the rails, remove the cobwebs from the back corners of those wardrobes and anything else that will make you feel energised about what’s going to happen later.
Number three: probably the hardest part of the day. Sorting everything into relevant piles – dresses – shoes – jeans and so on… Whilst we’re doing this sorting, try and have an edit of things – can you remember wearing this in the last 2 years? – does it still fit? – are there holes / scuffs / is it beyond repair? We’re aiming to be honest with ourselves, really honest! Doing a wardrobe declutter, re-organise, refresh, whatever we might call it – there should be a purpose, that way you can hold yourself accountable when you find yourself saying “I might wear that next summer” or “When I lose some weight that will definitely fit me”. Realistically if you haven’t worn it for a while, you probably won’t wear it next year, and you’ll probably have bought new things anyway. Or if you did lose weight, would you wear that item of clothing you last wore 10 years ago, or is it actually out-dated now in terms of style? And actually if you do lose some weight don’t you want to reward yourself with something new to wear!
Hopefully as we move into the fourth stage we’re feeling inspired about the edits we’ve made. When sorting the items we’ve decided to part with, try and have separate zones – charity shop, clothing donation bags, rags. Some charity shops will even take clothes that are unwearable as they’ll sell them in bulk as rags so always check with your local ones as ideally we want to be throwing away as little as possible. By sorting everything we should also have a really clear idea of whether we do have an excess amount of a certain category that will need a second edit. Mine was shoes! I never knew I had so many, I think they must be a bit of a guilty pleasure. 57 pairs I laid out, 57! I set myself a challenge to reduce by half and I’m pleased to say I got there. I now have a pile that I’m preparing to sell on Vinted, I’ve already dropped a bag off at the charity shop and put another bag in a clothing bank as I didn’t think they were ones that could be sold, but equally know there are lots of women’s refuge charities that would be so grateful of anything as sometimes these women leave home with nothing.
Finally we are organising everything back into the wardrobes, drawers, cupboards. If you can, invest in a load of velvet slimline hangers. They’re great quality for all items of clothes, being slim means you can fit more in and having them all the same makes it much more pleasant on the eye. We then want to stock the wardrobe from heaviest to lightest. Starting with heavy coats (this might not be your everyday outdoor coats as these are probably downstairs near the front door) items like bomber jackets, leather jackets etc then moving to long sleeve items – jumpers, shirts, tops, dresses, followed by short sleeve items, in the same order – shirts, tops, dresses, ending with things like strappy vests. The exception to the rule is skirts and trousers – they should go to the left of the coats. Try and use clip hangers – you can buy add-on clips for the velvet slimline hangers – check out Amazon etc.
Last few hints and tips:
1. Don’t try and organise in colour (unless you have a massive walk-in wardrobe). Hanging in a block of yellow means when you’re looking for that strappy vest it will be in amongst your jumpers, shirts, dresses and probably hard to spot.
2. Hang sub-categories together. Within jumpers you might have all your wool ones, hooded ones, polo-necks, etc
3. Try and have shoe storage that makes it easy to see at a glance which ones you have. I’ve had great ones from Temu, Sainsbury’s / Argos.
4. Try and fold/roll items in drawers and either use storage within the drawers if needed, or simply just drawer dividers.
However, if you’ve read all of this and are now feeling completely overwhelmed, don’t worry. Book in some time with me today and we can discuss how I can help you organise your wardrobe.
