STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

I like to organize by season, and then organize by type within the season. I have two closets and I keep all my summer/spring stuff in one closet and then all my winter/fall stuff in another closet. Within that I organize by: jackets, shirts, and then dresses/skirts.

I also have an entire wall of bins where I put all the stuff that can be folded - jeans, sweaters, t-shirts, etc.

I got this idea from a boutique by my house, and it's the only organizational thing I've stuck with: I sort by color, in the pattern of the rainbow! When I'm looking for a specific color, I just have to go to that section to see if I have anything that will work. Coats and dresses have their own sections, because dresses are long and coats are bulky.

I break mine down by type. Long sleeve sweaters, short sleeve sweaters, jeans, pants, skirts, blazer/jackets, coats. Within each category they are organized by the order I last wore them. When I wash an item I stick it to the left of that section so I know everything to the right of the section hasn't been worn.

OK this is going to be long as this is exactly my new job!

The main idea behind everything my company does is to create closets that present your clothing the way a boutique presents its merchandise. Everything is grouped and organized neatly, hanging on identical hangers, folded in neat stacks, presented to you in a way that makes you want to touch it and wear it. Your goal is to minimize distractions, and maximize how much of your clothing you can see at one time. If you don't already have them, I would definitely invest in nice, high quality, identical hangers for everything in the closet. You definitely want to get rid of those awful dry cleaners' hangers, if you have any kicking around, and having a closet full of the same hanger will make everything more streamlined--you'll be able to focus more on the actual clothes.

I think the first thing you'd want to do, if you really want to do this right and can handle the tedium, is move all your clothes to a sort of a temporary holding area. You can get collapsible garment racks at the Container Store for like 30 bucks, or you can use your shower curtain rod, or both.  Do the same with all the folded stuff. That way your closet is totally blank and empty and you can really focus on how you're going to organize everything as you put it back in. Trying to re-organize and streamline while the closet is full of stuff can be distracting. If you can't deal with hauling everything out at once, then try it in sections: pull out all your pants, organize, and replace, and then repeat with all the other categories.

The main thing is to group and categorize things in some sort of system that makes sense for you. Usually my company recommends sorting by type of piece (dresses, sweaters, casual tops, dressy tops, etc), but that's not the only way to do it; some people might like to group all their formal stuff together, all their work stuff, all their casual stuff, and then by type of piece within that. Whatever feels most natural to you. But I would suggest a slightly different approach for you, since you have that pull-down third rod at the top--use the categorizing approach for the things you really like and wear often, and put those on the bottom two rods. Then as you're putting your stuff back in, set aside anything you really don't wear very often, and then use the top rod for that. That could be any combination of different things--stuff you love but rarely wear and want to keep, stuff that's off-season, stuff you don't love but are reluctant to get rid of, whatever. The point is to make everything you wear most often most readily accessible to you.

So, after the clothes are organized by category, then line them up dark to light, with colors grouped together. Then if you want, you can get down to details like short sleeve vs. long sleeve, long dress vs. mid-length dress, etc., but if you're not that picky then don't sweat it. The point of doing this is to give you a sense of your inventory, again like a store, so you can figure out what holes, if any, you need to fill, and what you already have plenty of, so you know to remind yourself not to buy it the next time you go shopping.

Also, depending on your shelf and drawer situation, you might find open bins to be helpful--I got a few little white canvas ones for my own closet and I love them. They can definitely take the place of drawers, if you have more shelves than drawers. And they look really neat and organized sitting there in a row. Repetition of the same element is one of the biggest factors in getting something to look and feel organized--it creates cohesiveness.

This is probably already way more info than you ever wanted but if you have any other questions let me know!

I really should invest in some nice wood hangers...and make them all uniform. Ugh, they're just so expensive.

Kitty wrote:

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I really should invest in some nice wood hangers...and make them all uniform. Ugh, they're just so expensive.

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Not exactly.  The best ones I have ever gotten were from a dollar store.  Two for $1.  They are so nice and smooth finish, superior quality.  Other ones I have gotten aren't nearly as nice!  Anyways, places like Target have them in little bundles which probably make each hanger around $1-2.

Cortney1982 wrote:

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Kitty wrote:

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I really should invest in some nice wood hangers...and make them all uniform. Ugh, they're just so expensive.

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Not exactly.  The best ones I have ever gotten were from a dollar store.  Two for $1.  They are so nice and smooth finish, superior quality.  Other ones I have gotten aren't nearly as nice!  Anyways, places like Target have them in little bundles which probably make each hanger around $1-2.

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Yeah, even at $1-$2 per, I need about 100. so, still a bit much just for hangers.

NCshopper wrote:

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zeitgeist4 wrote:

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I break mine down by type. Long sleeve sweaters, short sleeve sweaters, jeans, pants, skirts, blazer/jackets, coats. Within each category they are organized by the order I last wore them. When I wash an item I stick it to the left of that section so I know everything to the right of the section hasn't been worn.

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I do something similar.  Once a year, I turn all my hangers facing the wrong direction.  When I wear a piece of clothing, I put it back on the hanger and turn the hanger so it's facing the correct direction.  After the year is up, I can easily see which items I haven't worn in a year and reevaluate if I need to keep the piece.

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Ooh, this is genius. Thanks for the idea!

For those of you looking for hangers, I recommend Huggable Hangers - I redid my whole closet w/them for about a $175 investment and they are great. Everything stays on them, they take up much less space than wood or plastic hangers, and look nice & uniform.