the wardrobe edit.
I love building from a foundation of favorite wardrobe pieces, because it gives you the roadmap back to you, plus it guarantees that you’re going to spend more time wearing things you love!
Once you’ve corralled your favorites, you can start building up a workable wardrobe of outfits using those key pieces as a base. If you were to ‘build a look’ around your favorite tank top, for example, what would you need? Perhaps a pair of jeans, then maybe a jacket or cardigan?
If you’re not sure how to build your looks, think back to what you wore over the past few days. Do you have some basic outfit ‘recipes’ you wear on repeat because they work with the flow of your days? I have a few that really work for my average days:
Tank top + cardigan + jeans
Tunic/dress + leggings
Knitted pullover + stretchy pants
Right now, we’re not worrying about what you’d wear to a friend’s wedding – those wardrobe outliers can come later. We’re incorporating the pieces that make your favorites really work. These are the support staff of your closet, like the second string athletes on the bench. They may not make the headlines or be outstanding, style-wise, but you need them to complete your style and head out the door.
For me, these ‘support staff’ are things like jeans, stretchy pants, a few store-bought cardigans because they’re super-lightweight or in a boring color I wouldn’t be excited to knit … for you, they might be dresses in shapes that are too complicated for you to sew with your current skills, sweatpants, T-shirts, etc.
Now might be the time for you to carve out a day when you won’t be interrupted and take everything out of your closet so you can start editing. Grab a warm or refreshing beverage and a few snacks, crank up the tunes, and pile everything on your bed or the nearest large, flat, empty surface.
Re-hang your favorites back in the closet;
Now grab all the supporting garments that help you make great outfits with your favorites;
Is there anything else in your piles that you would be devastated to lose? Perhaps that one great party dress, or the sweatshirt from college that might be on its last legs but makes you feel oh-so-cozy? Don’t go crazy and start piling everything back in, but do listen to those pieces that really call to you (this would be Marie Kondo’s ‘sparking joy’).
You might still have a considerable pile out there on the bed (I know I did!). Don’t panic.
Here’s what I would do at this point: sort what remains by TYPE of garment. Tank tops in one pile, T-shirts in another, and so on. [If you run across a definite ‘NO’ item while you’re sorting – too small, too worn out, or in a style that you’re just done with – by all means pop it in a bag specially marked ‘NO.’]
I love sorting garments by type at this stage because it shows you where you’re likely to overbuy: are you a sucker for a good button-down shirt and therefore have 46 of them? Or do you keep coming across items in that shade of pink you were trying to make work for you, but most of them still have the tags on? This tells you a lot about your ‘Kryptonite’: what are the items or colors or styles you fall for but that don’t really work for you? You’ll want to know what those are so you can stop the churn and notice when you’re falling for it again.
At this point, I give myself some leeway to build up my new wardrobe with a few extra items from any piles that are really key to my regular outfit recipes. I’m fine with having a few more tank tops in my closet, even if the ones I’m re-hanging in there don’t set my heart a-flutter. [Spoiler alert: those ‘kinda meh’ pieces could be the ones we decide to put on the top of the list to make ourselves soon!]
Hopefully at this point you have a small, tight, well-edited set of clothes back in your closet. The collection of pieces still hanging out in piles are likely the ones that would be ‘maybes’ if you were sorting through your wardrobe piece-by-piece. I mean, you liked them enough to spend money on them in the first place, so most of them aren’t going to be outright ‘NOs,’ right?
Hang tight – we’re about to sort through them another way, one that I’ve never heard anyone mention elsewhere in wardrobe decluttering advice.
