If you think that spring closet cleaning is just about replacing tired winter wools with fresh summer cottons, think again. This seasonal sorting may also be a perfect chance to sort through your life.
“Cleaning out your closet is like sending your soul to a spa,” says Victoria Moran, author of “Shelter for the Spirit: How to Make Your Home a Haven in a Hectic World” (HarperCollins, $20). “Excess is a psychic drain, because part of you is burdened by its ugly existence, even if it’s behind closed doors.”
Denver psychologist and author Andrea Van Steenhouse agrees. At least once a year the former radio talk show host reconsiders her wardrobe. She treats the experience as a ritual of sorts, a chance to think about who she is, where she has been and where she is going, using her clothes as food for thought.
Emotional inventory
She takes out each garment and recalls how she acquired it, what mood, fear, triumph or hope it represented when she brought it home. Those that haven’t progressed with her are discarded, clearing the way for others that celebrate the woman she has become. The ritual, an easy first step to uncluttering a chaotic life, is outlined in her book “A Woman’s Guide to a Simpler Life” (Harmony, $21).
“We think of closets as a superficial thing, but they are snapshots of who we are,” says Van Steenhouse. “They’re a metaphor, an easy place to start making significant life changes. Your eventual goal may be to straighten out your relationship with Mother, which can take years, but making peace with your closet can be done in a day.”
The purge process
Van Steenhouse suggests you start your wardrobe purge by blocking out at least three hours of uninterrupted time. Then remind yourself that almost nothing gets into your closet by accident. On the day we bring it home, every garment serves a purpose: to celebrate a promotion, spiff up for a high school reunion or reinforce the image we have of ourself.
Sometimes we choose clothes with uncanny insight and end up with an outfit that feels like heaven each time we put it on. Other times we fail miserably. Those are the expensive garments that lurk in the back of the closet, pricetags still attached. And as time marches on, even good choices can fall out of step. The navy linen sailor dress that flattered you as an ingenue, for example, may be way out of sync with the current, more sophisticated you.
Singular scrutiny
The next step is pulling everything out of the closet and into your bedroom. Hold the pieces, one by one, and ask yourself, “Do I love it?” If the answer is yes, this is probably a piece that felt right in the dressing room and just as right when you got it home. Put it into the first stack.
If you don’t love it, ask yourself, “Do I hate it?” This is the easiest stack. You might feel frumpy when you wear it, or you may wonder why you bought it in the first place. Put it in the second stack.
The third stack is the most dear. These are sentimental favorites — the dress you wore on your first date with your husband, the nightgown you wore on your honeymoon, your mother’s evening gown. You won’t have to part with them, just move them out of your working closet.
The fourth stack will be the largest — things you neither love nor hate, the so-so’s. They may be bargains too cheap to pass up, splurges you’ve hung onto because they cost so much, favorites past their prime or reflections of some you that is long gone. Many won’t even fit but are kept because they represent your hope of returning to some previous, more svelte incarnation.
“Pare down to just the wonderful things,” Moran urges.
Time to bag it
After you’ve sorted, bag up the hate-it pile, rehang the love-it pile and tuck the sentimental favorites into a special, separate place. Then tackle the so-so’s. If you’re brave enough, give them away and be done with it. If not, move them to a spare closet so they’re out of your sight or rehang them and don’t obsess about it. “Once they’re labeled misfits their incongruity winks like a neon light,” Van Steenhouse says. Next year they’ll be easier to part with.
Don’t worry if it’s harder than you think, she adds. “Every garment we own expresses a yearning, no matter how futile or fleeting. The deeper the yearning, the harder it is to throw it away. But each time we go through the closet we’re training our eye to distinguish what reveals us from what disguises us. When we dress our bodies in concert with our souls, we instinctively sense the harmony.”
SAYING GOODBYE TO YOUR GARMENTS
It may be harder than you think to part with your old clothes, especially if they feel like old friends. Here’s how to move on once you’ve identified the clothes that make you feel like a million:
Step 1. Bag or box the discard pile immediately. Clothes left in piles on the bedroom floor have a way of sneaking back into the closet.
Step 2. Identify new homes for the rejects, such as a consignment store, garage sale or favorite charity. If you can picture someone else enjoying your things, it’s easier to let them go.
Step 3. Call the truck, make an appointment at the consignment store, advertise the garage sale. Follow through.
Step 4. Say goodbye. Put the bags on the porch or drive them to a homeless shelter. Van Steenhouse calls a friend who recycles them through a women’s crisis center, sparing her a case of weeder’s remorse. “That’s the syndrome that sends me fishing through discard bags for some sad, rejected garment,” she says. “Rarely is this productive. It’s hard to miss what wasn’t right in the first place.”
Step 5. Celebrate your triumph. Brew a cup of tea. Read something fun. Or just sit in front of the open closet doors and revel in your accomplishment. You have earned this moment.
–Source: “A Women’s Guide to a Simpler Life.”
REBUILDING WITHOUT REPEATING MISTAKES
Once you’ve banished what doesn’t work, how can you rebuild your wardrobe without repeating past mistakes? Heed this advice from Victoria Moran, author of “Shelter for the Spirit,” and Nancy Taylor Farel, a Boulder, Colo., based style consultant:
– Look at the messages hidden in your discard pile. Do you consistently buy things that don’t flatter your figure, are in the wrong size, don’t match with your lifestyle or are made of uncomfortable fabrics?
– Spend time thinking about your personal style. Any shopping trip is easier if you come prepared with a strong sense of how you like to look. If you’re a sophisticated, no-nonsense kind of person, for example, you’ll want clean, spare garments rather than pleats and ruffles. Still puzzled? Look at the items in the love-it pile you created when you cleaned your closet and see what they have in common. Whether it’s wonderful fabric, quality workmanship or tailoring that plays up your strong points, it is what makes you feel physically — and emotionally — comfortable.
– Formulate a buying plan. Analyze who you are, what you do and what you need to be wearing while you do those things. If you work in a bank, for example, and spend your leisure time on the golf course, you’ll need two distinct sets of clothes. You may be building your wardrobe in only one area. If so, plan to switch your focus to the other one.
– Pay cash. It’s harder to watch your hard-earned dollars disappear than it is to pull out the plastic. Buying with cash will encourage you to think carefully before you follow through on an impulse.
– Avoid buying things when you have an agenda other than shopping. Or if you must spend money to relieve a good case of the blues, leave the tags on and don’t wear the items until you’ve calmed down.
REMEMBER 3 THINGS:
ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE
Marty Smerling, owner of the Custom Closet Co., in Denver, has these tips:
– Keep everything visible so you can see what’s clean, what needs mending, etc. If something is hidden away in a drawer, you won’t remember it’s there. Put shoes on racks, belts on hangers, scarves and sweaters on open shelves or in clear cubes.
– Get good hangers so everything hangs symmetrically and evenly. That keeps you from losing your favorite shirt, which is on a skinny hanger, behind a bulky sweater on a fat, plastic hanger.
– Separate items by color, season, purpose or even how often they are worn. One system does not fit all, so devise one that makes it easy to find things in a hurry. Better yet, install a telescoping hook so you can choose your outfit and hang it on the hook the night before you need it.
