Spring Clean your Clothing Closet the KonMari® Way
🌼 Spring Cleaning is here! Are you ready to refresh your clothing closet?
I had so much fun chatting with Petite Wardrobe Stylist Shannon April as a guest speaker on her Facebook Live, where I shared how to “KonMari” your clothing closets for the new Spring season and beyond. To learn the key KonMari® steps and clothing storage tips, read on and check out the interview below for a deeper dive:
The 4 Steps to the KonMari Method®
Commit to carving out time and energy to tidying up and visualize your ideal lifestyle. Your ideal lifestyle includes your physical environment, activities, people, and feelings you want to be a part of your lifestyle. (Cue: dreaming up your Perfect Day). As it pertains to your clothes specifically, imagining your ideal lifestyle will give you the opportunity to reflect on your own personal wardrobe and style. This includes reflecting on which clothes make you feel your best, the reasons you are attracted to your favorite outfits, and the types of clothes you enjoy wearing — whether it be because you enjoy the style, color, brand, fit or even as simple as IT DOES NOT REQUIRE IRONING! (a real-life client example!).
Take everything out and tidy by Clothing subcategory (as opposed to location). When you bring everything from the subcategory out into one pile, you’ll get a clear idea of quantity and can compare joy levels more easily. So, if you’re joy-checking your shoes — you’ll want to bring out ALL the shoes you own, even the ones not being stored in your clothing closet!
The order of tidying is very important. If you want to tidy your entire home, follow this order of the 5 primary categories: Clothes, Books, Paper, Miscellaneous (Komono), and Sentimental. We save Sentimental items for the very end because it’s the most difficult to make decisions on. However, by the end, your joy-checking radar and decision-making skills will be at its strongest.Joy-check and say “Thank you.” Start with the Clothing tops subcategory and pick out a favorite top. Ask yourself why it’s your favorite and let your answers be the joy basis for decisions. This will be the barometer by which you compare other clothes.
For items that no longer spark joy, thank the items for their service as you place them in a discard pile. A verbal thank you (or version of it) is recommended, as you lovingly release it.After you’ve joy-checked your items, you can focus on storage and organizational systems. All storage is temporary until everything has been joy-checked. By not focusing on finding the perfect place during the decluttering stage, you’re able to view your home as more of a blank canvas and can be intentional about what you put back and better evaluate systems that will work for YOU, specifically.
Organizing your Clothes:
For clothes hanging in the closet:
Arrange similar clothes together, creating zones.
Within these zones, the KonMari® guideline is to arrange clothes from dark to light colors, with longest garment on the left and rising to shorter garments on the far right. (*I advocate for customizing order to color preferences and keeping in mind the accessible parts of your closet. Function is important, not just aesthetics!)
Use uniform hangers and make sure all garments are facing the same direction. (Discard wire hangers!)
Create “breathing room” between clothes.
Make sure no clothes are dragging on the floor.
Fold clothes when you can ~ it’s the ultimate space-saver!
For folded clothes:
Utilize the KonMari® file fold, which is to fold your clothes into a rectangle and store it vertically. This optimizes space and keeps your items tidy. Check out a folding demo of pants and a t-shirt at the 23:47 interview mark.
Our tidying goal is for you to open up your closet, and love and know every piece. Imagine waking up every morning, knowing that whatever you wear today is going to support the day’s activities and make you feel good…you’ve got this, your joy awaits! 🌼
