Cleaning your closet can be such a hassle. Have you ever just looked at your wardrobe and wondered how the hell you collected so many new, used and barely-worn garments? That happened to me a couple of weeks ago when I returned back to my Harry-Potter-sized apartment after being in Sydney for the past couple months. Obviously I had done a bit (er – a lot) of shopping while overseas so I was faced with the question of where on earth everything was going to go.
The first time I thought I had too many clothes I just bought more hangers and squished everything in (it was to the point where things were so tightly hung together I could barely reach for a thin cotton tee). The next time I had too many clothes I bought a 2nd clothing rack from Ikea. This time, it was time to take action.
So, where to begin cleaning your closet?
I’ll admit, I was having a bit of trouble. Take this coat for example:
I bought this fuzzy little number six years ago from The Patch in Victoria, BC. I haven’t worn it for at least a year and wear it only sporadically anyways (tonight, perhaps). It has a growing gape in the left shoulder and the clasp fell off around year #3. But I love it. I thought I had made up my mind to toss it – and then I put it on and realized there was no way! Never! How could I betray the coat that a college professor once told me looked like a ‘wet dog’?!
The coat stays.
As for my pink, blue and silver sequinned blazer? Toss. My enormously oversized baby pink Neiman Marcus coat? Toss (when do I ever wear baby pink?). My emerald green chunky lace a-line Zara skirt? Almost kept, but ultimately, toss. Turns out, cleaning your closet isn’t that hard.
How to decide what to toss and what to keep
Ask yourself this question: If you were shopping right now and came across this garment, would you buy it? If not, chuck it. This is an extremely effective way of cleaning your closet and it’s kind of like a whole new shopping spree! Also, take a look at recent fashion trends and trend predictions for future seasons. You never know if those cherry red flared trousers might be making a comeback.
I now have three large bags filled with my unwanted clothes, shoes and accessories to be donated to the Canadian Diabetes Association. I’m resisting the urge to open them up and double check that I really want to give it all away because I know I’ll probably end up pulling a couple items back out and there’s just no room for that. Literally, no room.
Another helpful way I found for choosing between what goes and what stays is to create a moodboard filled with images of what you want your style to be inspired from – street style pics, different cities, colour palettes. Everything that doesn’t work with your new scheme, toss it. It’s hard but I promise it’s worth it.
(UPDATE: It’s now been a year since writing this post and I’ve turned the coat into a rug and shoes. See? I didn’t get rid of it. I just transformed it.)