Organizing Your Closet with the Marie Kondo Method
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The great priestess of organization is taking a break to take care of her family. Surprising, and ultimately, with her three young children, Marie Kondo certainly deserves a vacation and to let go a bit on organization.
She leaves behind a lovely legacy, and thanks to her Netflix show, many of us have realized just how pleasant it is to open impeccably organized drawers.
Because yes, when writing about fashion, we often care about our clothes and shoes, but very rarely about how to organize our wardrobe. And yet…God knows how many desperate fashionistas don’t know what to wear while their closets are overflowing.
So I take this opportunity to share my experience of spending an entire weekend sorting through my clothes using the Marie Kondo method so that you can finally have a wardrobe at home that looks like a luxury boutique display.
Why organize your wardrobe mindfully?
Because fashion is moving towards sustainability and sorting through your wardrobe can also be a eco-friendly approach. Organizing your wardrobe and parting with certain clothes doesn’t mean completely giving up on consumerism, but rather reflecting on the usefulness of the clothes you own and whether you really need that little impulse buy that you won’t wear more than twice.
Every piece of clothing has an environmental impact and now is the perfect time to adopt a more sustainable approach in our closets. Sorting also means giving more space to the outfits we truly love and that make us feel beautiful.
Buy less but better
Here are some tips for better purchasing your clothing:
- Prioritize local brands such as made in France, made in Europe, or brands that manufacture and produce in a single country.
- Reduce fast-fashion purchases.
- Buy second-hand.
- Opt for clothes made from organic cotton or more eco-responsible materials.
Discover brands we love that truly fit us
We tend to buy unique pieces in “heartthrob” mode that don’t necessarily match. The result? A wardrobe overflowing with clothes, yet we still struggle every morning to choose an outfit.
The simplest solution to ensure we have clothes that fit us and with which we can have fun is: to know and buy a few brands that offer cuts that suit us and styles we love.
Ideally, we could have in our closets one or two brands that offer quality basics like Vans or The Kooples, for example. One or two brands whose style suits us perfectly like Maje or Sandro, and finally, a luxury brand from which we can buy a favorite piece during sales like Balmain.
How to sort through your wardrobe without frustration?
We all want a colorful, organized, and clean wardrobe, yet how many times have we tried to sort through it only to end up parting with just two or three pieces? It’s human, but it’s hard to say goodbye to clothes that remind us of memories or that might be useful “just in case,” even if we know very well that most of them will never see the light of day again.
Yes, sorting can be emotional, but just thinking a little differently can help us see things from a better angle. Sorting allows us to realize all the clothes we own and in the same breath, our spending habits.
Ultimately, organizing is much more than just a household chore; it allows us to learn a lot about ourselves and to grow.
Keep the clothes you really love
- The Spark Joy Method:
How do you know if you should keep that sweater you never wear? It’s very simple: you hold it in your hands and by touching the fabric, you ask yourself if this piece brings you joy. If yes, you can keep it; if not, you say “thank you for your service” and add it to the pile to donate.
It’s Marie Kondo who popularized this simple and honest technique to keep only the clothes that make us happy.
- Donate instead of throwing away
We stay in a sustainable and solitary approach to give a second life to our clothing that can bring joy to others.
After all, if we liked that piece once, it will certainly please someone else who will appreciate it.
We can sell our old clothes on second-hand apps or donate them to charities.
Create capsule outfits
Organizing your wardrobe allows you to realize that you often have far too many clothes and that you don’t always appreciate the beautiful pieces you possess.
After sorting and keeping only the clothes you truly wish to wear, you can move on to the next step: creating capsule outfits.
Preparing several capsule outfits allows you to always have coherent outfits made with interchangeable pieces on hand. You can thus have a wardrobe composed of about thirty pieces that includes several quality basics and always have perfectly harmonious ensembles.
The organization
Sure, it’s not the most fun task, but it’s important when you want to organize your wardrobe. The advantage of Marie Kondo’s organization method? It lasts over time, and visually, you can no longer do without seeing a well-organized wardrobe that showcases our finest pieces.
The perfect folding technique
There’s nothing better than a video made by the queen of folding to explain the space-saving and visual satisfaction of having well-folded clothes in the same way.
Buy nice storage boxes
If we push the envelope a bit further, we can stick a pretty label on the box indicating its contents. This can be very useful for accessories we own in multiple copies that don’t have a clearly defined place in our wardrobe, like belts, hats, or scarves.
In addition to tidying up our belongings, storage boxes add color to the room and allow us to save time.
The Marie Kondo method works wonders, and a little personal confession, it also benefits all the inhabitants of the house who, in a more orderly environment, have more time for themselves.
Image credit: © Marie Kondo – Netflix
