A Time to Clean Out Your Closet

If you live in a seasonal climate, you're well aware of the effects it has on your wardrobe.

In the summer, you're basically dressing with two goals in mind:

1. Don't die of heat stroke.

2. Don't sweat through your clothes, you filthy animal.

It doesn't really matter if it's cute, you just want something easy and lightweight, but not see-through. (trickier than you'd think, fellas) Winter is the opposite, obviously. The only clothes that really matter in winter? Outerwear. Invest in a good heavy coat and boots (and a pair of mittens, scarf, & a hat) and you're set for months. And since spring lasts for approximately 72 hours these days (and you're so tickled for 48 degrees, by that point, that you venture out without your coat and get a cold and spend those 72 hours indoors watching Ellen all hopped up on decongestants), that "season" is essentially obsolete.

So what does that leave us with?

fall!

The magical time of year of pumpkins, fire-colored leaves, crisp mornings, breezy nights, lightweight scarves, fleece blankets, football, denim, cider, corpulent catalogs & fashion magazines stuffed into your mailbox, and the welcoming reminder that although the transition occurs late in the calendar year, it truly evokes the feeling of the beginning of the cycle.

A time to start fresh.

A time to begin anew.

A time to clean out your closet.

First on the to-do list? Watch an episode of Hoarders. If that doesn't put you in the mood to clean and organize, I don't know what will.

Now it's time to go through and get rid of stuff. I blogged here about de-cluttering your closet and other areas in your home if you'd like to check it out.

Here are three separate tips about organizing your clothes.

1. Hangers matter. I'm going to risk sounding like Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest, but wire hangers are just bad. Some heavy duty clothes will be completely fine on wire hangers, but a silk blouse? A thin sweater? A basic white tee? No, no, and no. Your clothes will have half the shelf life! And if you're like me and dealing with limited storage, wooden hangers just won't do.

My favorite hangers are these...

image via

...and they're sold here and here at BB&B

2. Organize by what makes sense in your life. When you're getting dressed, your first thought is not "am in a yellow mood?", it's "where am I going and what am I doing?" Think of how your wardrobe is divided naturally - with kids/with adults, at job/at home, office/weekend, school/work, day/night, normal/special occasion, etc.  Once you've divided it into how it makes sense for your schedule, separate by category: pants, skirts, blouses, etc. Then separate once more into specifics: jeans, dress pants, sleeveless, short-sleeve, long sleeve, etc. You get the point. It'll make your life much easier every morning when outfits are in their designated area. "I don't have anything to wear!" Oh, but ya do.

3. Don't forget about the other stuff - the gym clothes, the socks, the undergarments, the off-season clothes, the shoes, the accessories. Suggestions? Use drawer dividers like these. Use shelf organizers like these. Figure out the best way to store your shoes.

Now that you've purged your closet and organized what's left, it's time to get ready for a new season!

Since you're really in the in-between temperatures in fall, you have a lot of freedom to wear whatever you want. The key? Adding layers, adding texture, adding weight. Need inspiration? Blair Eadie has definitely mastered the layered-look. Here are summer trends that transition into fall, according to Refinery29. And here is my fabulous friend, Mimi, sporting some other summer-shifting-to-fall looks. (Isn't she cute?)

So there you have it - clean out the old to make room for the new.

I can smell a fresh season in the air...can you?

until next time,

g