“Wearing 20% of your wardrobe 80% of the time”
A great fashion truism
In my case I probably wear and wash the same 18 items of clothes (excluding underwear), all exclusively work out gear and work wear, week in and out without fail – sometimes this is probably more like 10-12 items of clothing if I have nowhere to go and no-one to see and so just live in pyjamas and work out gear, otherwise known as “My Day Pyjamas”. Up to 8 additional items of clothing get worn maybe once a month on special occasions – the remaining items in my wardrobe NEVER see the light of day.
I have been promising myself to get my chest of drawers and wardrobe properly organised all Winter but have so far resisted as:
a) I wasn’t convinced I wouldn’t just put all the weight I’ve lost right back on again and thus require the tent like shapes that masquerade as large sized clothes.
b) Clothes shopping is not one of my natural talents – case in point – despite 3 separate trips to two different London shopping Meccas over the last four months to buy a replacement pair of skinny jeans that actually fit me, and despite trying on dozens of pairs in different stores – I have so far failed to find a pair that do fit my legs, bum AND tum. So is it wise to throw the old ones out before I find a suitable replacement?
c) In my cupboard, hangs the manifestations of all sorts of epic emotional traumas – some of these have never been worn as a result or never will, but do I really have the strength to deal with them?
d) Having to deal with the items that don’t deserve to be thrown away but cannot be sorted and neatly put back – is another hassle entirely – the must fix/ get professionally cleaned/ give away task is really the one I’ve been putting off.
e) Reading Lauren Conran’s 'Style' guide on cleaning out your closet – I was really enthused to get going til I read that she had a professional team of four people assisting her for three days to organise her closet – LA Style!! Granted she likely doesn’t own the 80% exact same limited wardrobe as she did when she was a University student 5 years previously and granted that Lauren’s closet has its own designated room – but really is this a task I should or could attempt to go-it-alone?
Major procrastination followed…….every weekend…......for months. But this week’s Spring Fever and the end of London Fashion Week has made me bite the bullet – a Wardrobe SOS has been issued to a major style fiend and in the interim I am thinking of applying the following three wardrobe clearout rules, depicted here as a flowchart - check those management skills!!:
I've also appending the following Four Additional Generic Clearout Principles to my three rules:
- UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE, IGNORE THE PREVIOUS THREE CLEAROUT RULES JUST BECAUSE THE ITEM IN QUESTION *SPARKLES*
- Does it suit my new hair style? Yes = Keep, No - Giveaway
- Allow myself a MAXIMUM 5 wardrobe lifelines – 1 to be applied to the bin pile and 4 to be applied, if necessary, to the giveaway pile and the items allowed to return to the deepest, darkest recesses of the wardrobe.
- If, at the end of the clear out, my wardrobe no longer contains anything suitable to wear to a job interview (V. Important) or a party (Critically Important), retract the best possible alternatives from the bin/ giveaway pile.
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