Editing your closet can be very overwhelming, and it can be a difficult. When you look at the items in your closet, it easy to have sentimental attachment to them, remember how much money you spent on the item, or think if you just lost five more pounds, you could fit into those jeans. If you keep everything in your closet, your look can’t evolve, and you won’t have room for new clothes to make new memories in!
When I edit a client’s closet, I follow these steps.
1. I ask my client to tell me about their life, and what their days consists of, and how they spend their free time, so I can see if the clothes in their closet have a purpose.
2. I have a garment rack to hang clothes, but use your bed chairs to lay the clothes out.
3. I pull the clothes out in groups, first I do tops, and next I do pants, then shoes, and accessories.
4. First I look to see if the clothes are in style, if they are not I toss them.
5. Next I look to see if they are worn, if it is something that can be fixed and is worth being fixed I keep moving on with my checklist, but if the item has clearly seen better days I throw them away.
6. I ask my client to try on clothes, and to see if it fits them, sometimes once a garment is on I will see it doesn’t flatter my client and we toss it.
7. If it flatters my client, the coloring is good, I ask my client is this something they wear a lot, does it work with their day to day.
• Some items, a gown for a formal event is not going to be worn frequently. I am looking at clothes they wear to work, or what they wear on the weekends.
• Some of my clients have switched jobs and will have a lot of business clothes that they don’t need anymore, and so a few pieces are kept, but it is not necessary to keep all of them.
8. During this process I am writing notes of what needs to be replaced.
9. There is always at least one item that is held on to for sentimental reasons, that is okay.
10. I also take pictures of outfits that are created during this process.
11. I end up with three piles:
• Keeping
• Donating
• Throwing away because it is worn out
12. At the end of the process the closet is only full of pieces that are “10’s”, my client is going to wear, and there is room in the closet for new items!