As you well know by now, there are lots of ways to be productive during the days of Covid quarantining – from mastering crow pose to learning a new language to finally being able to ID the Big Dipper during a celestial stargazing session. But if there’s one task above all others we know in our hearts we must tackle during this social downtime it is, over-washed hands down, organizing our closet. Rather than take the usual dive-in-with-no-actual-plan-and-quit-in-the-middle approach that we’ve taken in the past, we turned to an expert, our fashion editor Melissa Garcia (Instagram @melissagarciastyling, for her top tactics.
Edit Hard
You’ve heard about making piles before – what you’re keeping, what you’re donating, and what’s on its last legs and needs to be tossed. Garcia agrees, but also advises closet-cleaning warriors to get rid of more than just their really old stuff. “Consider the last time you really wore something and make sure that you’ve worn it in the last three to six months. Even with seasonality, if you haven’t worn it in six months, you probably don’t need it,” says Garcia. “Unless it’s a classic piece.”
Consider Your Hangers
Those space-saving hangers really make such a difference,” says Garcia. “So, swap them out for wooden and cleaner hangers.” And they don’t just save space, she adds. “Uniformity really helps make things look neat and organized.”
Help Your Handbags Get Under Control
Garcia stores larger bags (in dust covers if you like) on the floor under her hanging clothes – space that often goes to waste. But her go-to trick for smaller bags is a genius one: I buy those sectioned file dividers from Staples,” she says. “They’re prefect to hold little clutches.”
Streamline Your Shoes
This one really depends on space, but the key – again – is uniformity. If you can line them up on a rack on the bottom of your closet, great. If a hanging shoe holder on the back of the door is all you have room for, do it. And if you want to keep them in boxes, that’s cool too, but Garcia advises against using the original cardboard boxes, which can get beat up quickly and make your closet feel less than coordinated. “If you can, buy those plastic clear boxes. You’ll be able to see everything and again, it helps with uniformity.”
Set Up Sections
You’ve probably tried to do this in the past, but now is your time to take another stab with blouses hung together in one area, dresses in another and so on. Same goes for things you’re folding – denim, sweaters, tees. And if you’re putting items in a dresser or stack of drawers, Garcia suggests creating rows rather than piles so you can eye everything as soon as you open the drawer. “It helps visually and in bigger drawers you can even get dividers.”
One Step at a Time
Garcia’s biggest piece of advice? Take your time. (And you’re in luck: We’ve got a lot of that right now.) “It can be incredibly overwhelming, so do it sections. Do denim one day and go through your workout clothes the next, for example. “If you do one category at a time, you can accomplish something,” she says. “You see a finite result and you don’t get overwhelmed.”
