A quick way to organize and unclutter your closet.
This picture is evidence of my own closet. It was overstuffed and weighted down. One night, as I was sleeping peacefully, I heard a large snap! Everything came tumbling down. I guess, this is my cue to organize, simplify, and unclutter!
Luckily, for me, when I was in Florence Italy, I met a friend who gave me some helpful organizing and fashion tips.
She worked for the fashion institute in Florence and her outlook on simplifying changed my world! I learned that statement and signature pieces are must, but you need to balance them with timeless and classic options. One little black dress can be enough with the right accessories and embellishments to spice it up and change the look a bit.
If you have a small closet like me, you probably have to store your off-season clothes in tubs. Although this switch out is a pain, it can be a good opportunity to weed out items that you no longer wear or hardly wear.
If you have kept an item because of sentiment or you paid a fortune for it, ask yourself what the value will be in the months ahead. Then determine if you truly should keep it, or if it is time to donate it.
If you have a big walk-in closet, I envy you! 😉 You can store more, organize easier, and create categories and spaces for everything from your accessories to your purses to your undies!
Tip # 1: Organize by color
Put all your blacks together, all your grays, creams, whites, greens, yellows, reds… You get the idea. This helps for when you go to select an outfit. This makes stylizing easy because when you think, “Hey I need a yellow shirt to go with these white pants today” then you quickly turn to the yellow section of your closet and, voila. Have some pieces that are multi-colored? They get their own special spot in your closet of course. I always hang my multi-colored pieces closest to their dominant color.
Tip # 2: Keep pants and shorts separate
Put pants and shorts in a chest of drawers or on a hanging closet shelf. Pants are a pain to hang, they’re heavy for the hanger, and they can take up lots of space. Shorts, on the other hand, fall right off the hanger and make for a closet nightmare.
Tip # 3: Keep tops and cardigans on the left and dresses on the right or vice versa.
Organizing by color is just the first step, from there I keep my long sleeve items on the far left and within each color category it will slowly digress to tank tops. With that being said my basic cami tanks, that I wear underneath shirts, I keep in a drawer. On the right side of my closet I have a hanging organizer there with six shelves. This is where I keep pajama tops, bottoms, workout clothing, and a few off-season favorites to pull out readily in the event of a vacation or a change in temperature. To the right of this organizer is where I keep all of my dresses. Again, my dresses are organized by color. This time I keep the shortest sleeve toward the center of my closet and the longest sleeve toward the outer edge. come to winter season this will flip flap so that the longest sleeves are in the center and the shortest sleeves are on the outer edge. Why do you ask? Think about it, it makes it a lot easier to grab what I need quicker.
Finally, try to only keep the things that you actually wear.
If it’s been over a year or if something does not fit you either donate it, get it resized, or offer it to a friend.
