Closet cleansing success!
Would love all my clothes to fit in this closet. From Real Simple
That may be a little extreme, but I did want to cut it down by a good chunk. So, over the weekend, with my husband's support, I went through every category of clothing and sorted out:
- A thrift store pile
- A give-to-friends pile
- Akeep pile, and in some rare cases
- A "don't know what to do with this" pile.
Being someone who's always had lots of clothing (in the past year of working in a professional environment I have NEVER worn the same outfit twice--which is just ridiculous), it's a big mental shift for me to get down to a basic, essentials-plus-trends wardrobe. It's also pretty interesting to think that I can buy new clothes in this new system--that's kind of how it works--but I will have to get rid of things as they get old. I have clothes from high school in my old wardrobe, seriously. And quite a few nice sweaters and tops from like 2006. It's time those pieces moved on, and so should I.
Right now I don't need this lovely closet. From BHG
I've recently become very inspired (thanks, I think, to Pinterest) by some of the wonderful fashion blogs out there. I love seeing real people wearing (very current) trends and looks and pin their pictures like crazy in my "cute clothes" pinboard. I'll have to share fave pics sometime. One blog in particular, Kendi Everyday, had some great tips for me on building a working closet--I particularly needed to read the part of closet purging.
Kendi Everday also inspired other fashion bloggers to wear only 30 pieces for a month, creating 30 cute outfits. The 30 for 30 challenge created some super cute outfits on other blogs I've seen!! Totally inspirational. I wanted to use the same idea for my wardrobe throughout the year--if I only had pieces I really loved, I would look and feel cuter.
Armed with these ideas and a strong desire to cut down, I sorted out about 50% of my clothes this weekend. My mom taught me well about going through your closet, and about basics and accents and sorting by color, and buying things that you can imagine wearing 3-5 ways, but it had gotten so out of hand. I don't have the storage space for all this stuff. One thing I found that really helped this time was to make piles by color or neutral, everything, even tanks and tees. I don't need 5 white tanks. Get rid of the ickiest ones! This really helped this time. It's also hard to imagine my clothing needs for all seasons--highs have been in the 90's the past few weeks here in Oregon but I know winter will come again! So I did keep some staples from last winter, got rid of some, reminding myself that it is okay to buy new things as my tastes change.
Any other little tips you try???
Whew! What a project! Hope did cool stuff this weekend too!