Clear Wardrobe, Clear Mind
It’s another fresh new year, which brings a new opportunity to kick those bad habits and complete those tasks we’ve been putting off doing, purely because it makes sense to have a new start in the new year, right. Yes! Absolutely right!
Now is a great time to grab the wardrobe doors by the handles and have a really good sort out, and you never know, you might even find that amazing top you’d completely forgotten about. Here are some of our top tips to help you achieve organisational utopia…
1 Be fierce
There’s little point in getting everything out of your wardrobe, folding it nicely and putting it back in. No! This is a task that requires a little ruthlessness on your part.
A good rule is that if it’s not seasonal (more on this later) and you haven’t worn it in the last year, it goes. Or, if that is slightly too cut-throat for you, maybe consider whether, if you saw this in the shops today, would you still buy it? Any clothes or accessories you bravely discard can either be donated to charity or sold on online through services such as Facebook Marketplace or the Vinted app.
2 Seasonal changes
Now you have only the clothes and accessories you like to wear, sort them into Summer and Winter piles. You’ll probably have some clothes that you wear all year round, so these can be put back into the wardrobe, along with the clothes for whichever season is appropriate at the time. This will save you a considerable amount of space (especially with your footwear) and will make it far easier to find the clothes you do actually want to wear.
Put the clothes for the other season in suitable packing boxes with lids, label them clearly and then place them under the bed or in the loft, until you need them when the seasons next change. You can then simply rotate your clothing from wardrobe to packing box each season, as appropriate.
3 Sort by occasion…
First of all, sort your remaining clothes into what you wear them for. For example, work, gym, everyday wear and so on.
4 Then by garment type…
For each of these piles, put your shirts, trousers and skirts together.
5 Then by colour…
Finally, organise these items by colour as you hang them in the wardrobe. It may seem a little obsessive, but it will make finding ‘that’ item super easy and may also help when putting new outfits together.
6 Divide and conquer
Now for the wardrobe itself. The ‘common’ wardrobe has just one simple rail and maybe a shelf or drawer, but nowadays affordable fashion means that this probably isn’t going to cut it for most of us.
Adding an extra rail at a lower level will give you double the hanging space, or you could insert a shelving system with customisable sections that will fit inside your wardrobe so you can create exactly the layout you need.
7 Avoid hanger hatred
There is little more frustrating than trying to take out a hanger that’s caught on another hanger, which makes the clothes half fall off but only half, so you have to scramble around trying to unhook it from the back of your dark, crammed wardrobe – aaaarrrrgggghhhh! Avoid hanger hatred and free up some space on the rail by folding anything that you can, BUT in order to avoid a pile of screwed up t-shirts and a messy wardrobe, you need to make sure you fold each one in the same way and with the sleeves tucked in… just as they are in the shops.
8 Don’t be afraid to accessorise
You’re probably already very proud of your efforts, and so you should be. Not only are you going to save yourself time when you’re getting ready, you may also have unearthed some hidden gems that you can’t wait to wear. But then you notice the piles of shoes, scarves, hats and handbags!
It’s OK, you’re a pro at this now. Organise these exactly as you would the rest of your clothes, by season, occasion and colour, and then use shelving or hooks on the back of the doors to store them. Pair up your shoes and put them in clear boxes so they can easily be seen and then stack them on the wardrobe floor.
One decluttered wardrobe, one decluttered mind… so now bring on the man drawer!
Leigh Hall from Strive for Design is an interior designer in Cambridge, so if you’d like help organising your home or if you’d like to discuss how we can design and build a bespoke wardrobe system for you, please give us a call on 01223 622 688 or complete our enquiry form.