Declutter your Wardrobe to Discover what Suits You and Your Lifestyle!

Getting dressed is habitual, something we all do everyday. For some it’s fun, a chance to play with colours and style, to put together a look which feels fab and sends them out the door with a bounce in their step ????. However, for many more it’s a trial, an added stress to our already busy lives ????. How many times have you declared that you don’t have a thing to wear whilst staring miserably at a wardrobe that is literally bursting at the seams?

Research shows that we tend to wear 20% of our wardrobe 80% of the time. That’s an awful lot of clothes languishing unused and in many cases unseen and forgotten ????. For me, the key to bring some calm to your wardrobe and make getting dressed easier, is to start from a good place, restore some order. How difficult would your weekly food shop be if the supermarkets didn’t group things together, if everything was just randomly thrown onto the shelves including items which were well past their sell by date?! Perhaps the truth is that you can’t find a thing to wear ????. You may be surprised at the treasure you discover when you have a good clear out.

To do this you need to allocate some time. Depending on how many clothes you have it could take anything from a couple of hours to a whole day, so I suggest taking it a cupboard or drawer at a time, it’s less overwhelming!  The first question is why aren’t you wearing the other 80%? The chances are a lot of those clothes just aren’t you. They may not suit your natural complexion, your body shape, your natural style (yes you will have one, even if you don’t recognise it yet????) or your lifestyle. As you sort through your clothes, ask yourself:

 Are they really you?

Be honest with yourself about whether you’ll wear the items in front of you

• Do you like each item? This relates to both the colour and feel of the fabric. If you don’t like something, chances are you won’t wear it and if you do, you certainly won’t feel comfortable and relaxed. You may have several of the same item in different colours but always wear the same one. This is a big hint that you don’t actually like the other colours, so you may as well get rid of the ones you don’t wear. Do you have a top that you like the look of on the hanger but immediately take it off in favour of something else? Take a minute to feel the fabric; do you like how it feels, is it too thick, too fine, too scratchy, or too soft?
• Does it suit you? Does the colour make your skin look bright and fresh or is it draining you? Does it fit you in the right places or make you look 3 sizes bigger than you really are?
• Do you feel comfortable in it, do you feel like you? Is it too smart, not smart enough, too flowery, too plain, too structured, too floaty?
• Does it suit your lifestyle? Our lives change and it’s important to make sure our wardrobe reflects that too.

Can you wear them now?

When you’re searching in your wardrobe for something to wear, you’re not looking to create an outfit for six months time, you want to wear it today or tomorrow. It’s much easier to create outfits if every item could be worn now.

• Being faced with piles of jumpers in the middle of summer and light dresses in the depths of winter just adds confusion. I suggest that twice a year you pack away the clothes that you’re not going to wear for the next six months to create space for those that you will. The best way is to get your Autumn/Winter things out in October and then swap for your Spring/Summer in April.
• Does it fit? Keeping jeans that you last wore five years ago in case you lose or gain weight is a waste of space. If you’re currently on a diet and within a size of hitting a target weight, then it’s ok but otherwise you’re cluttering your life and your mind.
• Is it in wearable condition? If a piece of clothing is torn, marked, has a broken zip or buttons missing then it can’t be worn today. Either repair it or throw it away.

Can you make an outfit?

• Does each item go with others to create an outfit? If you’ve an item in your wardrobe that doesn’t go with anything else to create an outfit, then you simply won’t wear it. You’d be throwing good money after bad if you needed to buy more clothes to make it work.