too many clothes? here's how to solve the problem of having nothing and everything to wear
a guide to cleaning out your closet
a guide to cleaning out your closet
It’s so common it’s a cliché: a woman standing in front of her overflowing closet, having an emotional, spiritual, and practical crisis because she has somewhere to be and nothing to wear. And it’s true, a closet full of clothes you don’t wear can be overwhelming and stressful — but so can the prospect of cleaning it out. In this guide, we consulted three of our favorite experts —
, , and — on getting dressed about how to clean out your closet, from the practical considerations to the philosophical ones.
You don’t necessarily have to hold onto the things you think you’re supposed to have if you’re not wearing them.
says, “I have a very difficult time with prescriptive dressing. You don't have to wear anything if it doesn't work for you. I feel like saying ‘Everyone should own a button-down shirt, and everyone should have black heels and a little black dress’ sounds good, but then in practice, that's how you get confused because you're looking for the wrong things. I have about seven black dresses, and when they’re hung up, I can’t even tell which one is which, so I forget about them all the time. I'm not getting rid of them —instead, I'm making sure to remember them by organizing my wardrobe differently. But somebody else who's forgetting about their black dresses, it might be because they don't want to wear a little black dress. So you need to figure out what your version of a little black dress is. Why do people say ‘everyone should have a little black dress?’ It’s so you have something to wear to a function that you will always look dressed up in. So, what is that for you?”
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