8

SHOP YOUR CLOSET

The first rule of my own closet is to wear what’s in there. If I can’t find everything easily, it means I am not using all of the pieces I own. Remember when your memory for clothes was razor-sharp and you could instantly match your new skirt to a top from two years earlier which was buried at the bottom of a drawer? Flash forward twenty years and, between family and work, most of us are lucky if we can remember a list of necessities when we go to the supermarket. I like to help “merchandise” closets so I can see everything—and I never go to the market without a list.

The parallels between clothing and food are many. If you buy fresh bread, cheese, or fruit at the farmers’ market, do you try to eat it before it spoils? I’d bet your answer is yes. Yet how many times do you buy new pieces and let them hang in your closet for ages before wearing them? Of course, you might be waiting for a special occasion, trying to hunt down a matching piece, or considering if the style is too trendy for your lifestyle, but that’s exactly the problem. Many people I work with open a closet full of clothes every day and say, “I have nothing to wear!” Your closet should not be a wardrobe museum, full of relics and unwearable pieces. Instead, it should be a place in your home where you go to become you —whether the day calls for your inner power player, mentor, multitasking working parent, or traveling salesperson. Your goal should be to make your closet a shopping destination where everything you love is in stock and fits!

Closet Consultation

If you open your closet and feel overwhelmed, then it’s time to give yourself a closet consultation. If you have clothing with tags still on but are wearing the same outfits every week, then you’re not making the most of your investment. Clothes, accessories, and other style furnishings are indeed an investment, of both your money and your time. Even if you feel as though you don’t have a lot of clothing in your closet, examine what’s hanging in there. Do you really wear everything? Your closet is not a storage facility—each piece should have an assigned value and an expiration date.

The first step to going through your closet is to start at one end and go piece by piece, asking yourself, “Do I love it?” If possible, divide your hanging work clothes from your play clothes to make this process easier and more targeted. Prepare to make piles on your bed or around the room and to be honest with yourself. Examine each well-loved garment as if you were choosing fruits and vegetables at the market. Would you select the slightly bruised apple or the perfectly shiny one? Ideally, you should love all of your pieces; the reality is that most of us do not. We often settle because of a lack of time, funds, or even interest, just wanting to make it out of the store and back to our lives. By learning what to look for and how to shop more intelligently, you will be able to greatly reduce this inefficient use of your time. If you love or like a piece, keep it hanging in the closet. If it ranks an “okay,” put it into a pile. Be realistic here. Don’t tell yourself, “I spent a lot of money on it, so therefore I like it” or “It’s a good brand, so I should keep it.” These are not good reasons to wear something if it doesn’t look good on you!

The second step is to categorize your piles. If you are not sure whether something you’ve selected fits, or you have owned it so long you just assume it still fits because it’s a familiar number, put it in a “try-on” pile. If it doesn’t fit, it goes in a “discard” pile. Clothes don’t earn the right to live in your closet forever any more than they magically dress you in the morning or make their own way to a cash register. You, and only you, control these actions. Separate items that are too big from those that are too small, as well as items that need slight alterations (hem or sleeves are too long, missing button, small hole or tear).

I also want you to examine garments for stains and tears. If the damage is fixable, place the item in the alterations pile; if not, let it go. The “let it go” pile will probably be one of the bigger ones. We often have a tough time letting go of favorite items that are stained, but if you have tried to remove the stain to no avail, then keeping it in the business category is not an option. Pit stains and ring around the collar count, too. Your closet should not be the place stained clothes go to die.

The third step is to look inside your closet and assess whether it’s stocked with items that match your lifestyle. Do you have a career in sales but a closet full of cardigans? Maybe you need to invest in additional power pieces. Are you a recent grad dressing as if you were still in college? Fast-fashion stores like H&M, Zara, The Limited, Express, and capsule collections at JCPenney, Kohl’s, and Target make it easy and affordable to shop for work clothes on a budget. Or did you recently change jobs so you now have clothing that works only in a different industry or for a different dress code? Dressing appropriately for the lifestyle you are living helps foster and maintain confidence. There are enough distractions in life without your closet being one of them. Streamline your shopping decisions and set the bar high. Only pieces that you love, that fit well, and that work for your lifestyle should make it home to your closet.

One category of unnecessary items people often have in their closets are what I call ghosts. These are friends from yesteryear, highlighting important occasions from your past: the suit you wore to your law-school graduation, your father’s corduroy blazer, your engagement-party ensemble (that you hope will work one day on a resort-casual trip), or one of my favorites—an item from the store Country Road, which closed in the United States over ten years ago! If you have the room to allow your closet to be a wardrobe museum, exhibiting all past purchases and memories, terrific. Most people don’t.

When saving items, do so for a good reason and limit the number. For example, Jim had an excessive number of baseball hats. His job was baseball related, and though he never wore any of the hats, he loved having them as mementos. Eventually, they overran his closet and he barely had room for the important stuff like shoes, sweaters, and casual wear—all available shelving went to hats. When I arrived to help organize his space, we discussed his attachment to these hats, and he realized that, while he loved them, he felt overwhelmed and stifled by his collection. To maximize his physical (and emotional) space, I created a decorative wall in his closet so he could admire his top-twenty baseball caps; the rest were put away in a box in the basement. He was free to rotate his featured twenty hats, but now they added decorative value instead of just taking up space. This freedom made it easier for him to let go—often one of the hardest things for us to do in our closets. In fact, the biggest obstacle to embracing a new style resides in the mind.

Hanging alongside the ghosts in our closets are those pieces that might come back into style or fit again. While fashions do come back, bodies sometimes don’t. Try not to hang onto something for longer than three years without wearing it unless it has a very specific purpose. I know a few savvy women who love to shop at work-staple destinations like Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, J.Crew, and Talbots but hate that everyone else in their office is also shopping there. They will actually buy and save star pieces for a couple of years and wear them only after everyone else has cycled through them, so that no one will remember these once hung on every mannequin in the city. This takes a well-honed eye and a bit of planning, but if you have the space and budget to house items, give it a try. This is one of the only times I allow clients to keep pieces with tags.

I also know women who save their money and buy amazing designer pieces—a pair of Manolo Blahniks, a Chanel handbag, a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress, a David Yurman necklace—and save them forever. In fact, five years after the purchase date, such items might very well be sitting in their original packaging. This is not productive “saving.” Your money would be better off sitting in a retirement account. If you are a member of the “buy and hold” club, march over to that fabulous piece and ask yourself why you’re not wearing it. Do you think you don’t deserve it? Doesn’t it fit your lifestyle? Is it too much for the office? Usually, these pieces are classics and an amazing opportunity but we might be trigger-shy or waiting for the perfect moment . . . one that may never come.

Everything in your closet should be wearable. Create moments to interact with your clothing and accessories—otherwise, they become dollar bills on hangers. If you’ve made a big-ticket purchase only to find later that it wasn’t the right match, try consigning the item to recoup some of your cost and then move on. Over time, amazing pieces must be edited out of your wardrobe simply because a style has expired—yes, sometimes before you’re able to debut them.

Once your piles are created, the next step is assessment. At this point, you should have at least three piles: one for items to try on, one for items that need action (alterations, stain removal), and one for giveaways. Of course, you can further divide these according to specific details. In the “action items,” divide pieces that can be easily altered from those that are too small or way too big. Separate those pieces that need to go to the dry cleaner from ones you can treat at home. And, in the giveaway group, decide which pieces go to people you know and which are destined for charitable organizations. It feels good to donate items, whether sharing clothes with your nanny, a thrift-store patron, or a stranger learning to dress to impress with the help of a charitable organization. Don’t save your clothes for a “right time” donation, or they’ll stay in your guest-room closet longer than they did in yours.

Closet Organization: What’s Left Hanging?

Now that you’ve made your piles, your closet should be filled with the items you need and love. Take a look inside: Is there much in there? I’m betting most of what’s hanging up is what you actually wear or wish you wore to work, and that what’s on the bed is excess or nostalgic items you would only get rid of if forced. Consider this your motivation. Remove the empty hangers from your closet. Assess the amount of space you now have and revel in it. We tend to wear 20 percent of our wardrobe 80 percent of the time. Most of the time, when I clean out a closet, clients are pleasantly surprised to note that the process of rebuilding their wardrobes is neither as painful nor as expensive as they expected. We rarely get rid of brand-new pieces that are stylish—we let go of stained, dated, ill-fitting garments that have not been worn in years but take up a lot of space.

A well-edited closet provides you with the opportunity to clearly identify the gaps in your wardrobe and shop your closet to create new combinations. The first step is to visually organize your newly revised space so that these opportunities are clearly visible. Once you remove the extras, try to hang everything on the same kind of hanger—whether these are wire hangers from the dry cleaner or elegant wooden ones. Hangers in different styles and colors are distracting to the eye, especially when laden with clothing, so do your best to create a streamlined, elegant look by only using one style. Think of your favorite places to shop—is it easier to find that perfect piece at a well-organized boutique or on the overcrowded racks at your local discounter? But be mindful of the amount of time you have for this project. If it’s too overwhelming, it could be left untouched or half-finished.

This “merchandizing” process is about the action of organizing your space and making it as attractive and easy to shop as your favorite boutique. If you are looking for a hanger recommendation, one of my favorite styles is the slim and velvet collection available at a variety of retailers, including QVC, HSN, Target, The Container Store, Costco, and Bed Bath & Beyond. This type of hanger works especially well if you are tight on space, and will help prevent your clothing from slipping off the hanger. Plan for at least half an inch of space between hangers (more if your hangers are thicker) so you can comfortably move them as you browse your closet. If you do not have enough hangers at home, add them to your shopping list as you identify the gaps in your wardrobe.

The next step is to choose a method of visual organization that works for you. Some people like to organize by color (light to dark) or category (suits, pants, skirts). For women, my favorite method is to start by sleeve length—line up your shirts starting from sleeveless to long-sleeve and, if so inclined, organize by color within each category. Move on to third pieces and dresses, also organizing by sleeve length. If you’ve ever wondered what colors look best on you, look in your closet, because chances are you already own them. As you organize tops, third pieces, and dresses, you will understand how color plays a role in your wardrobe—do you stock up on neutrals or buy only brights? You don’t need to own every color in the rainbow, just the ones that are flattering.

Once you reach pants and skirts, organize shortest to longest and again by color if you so desire. If you have enough long hanging space in your closet, hang pants using clip hangers to save space instead of folding them over a hanger. Next comes the matter of positioning these items—here, it’s best to merchandise the items that are most challenging to wear and those that get frequent use in a well-lit, prominent place. For example, if you decide what to wear every day by the way your stomach feels (bloated or skinny), you may want to have your pants easily accessible so you can try them on in the morning. If you wear a third piece daily, showcase third pieces in the center instead of using that valuable space for layering tops and shells. When you organize items by sleeve length and hem, you will clearly see what you own. Then merchandise by spotlighting the categories you wear the most or wish you wore more often.

Men can also follow a similar method of organization. Categories for your work essentials may be more limited, but identify them anyway. Divide shirts by arranging them from casual to formal, by sleeve length and color. Separate pants from suits, and isolate sport coats. If you have trouble pairing ties with shirts, consider making combinations in advance and hanging them together. You are more likely to wear accessories (cuff links, brass collar stays, tie clips) if you can find them, so keep them nearby.

Through this process you will begin to discover multiples of the same item, pieces with tags, and forgotten or incomplete outfits. Our tendency is to buy multiple versions of the same item repeatedly until we get it right. Many times this happens with a “risky” fashion item, when we’re trying out a new color or style. Ladies, remember when you wanted to try that tunic for a particular ensemble? Perhaps the first time you rushed to buy it you were on your lunch break and spotted an unbeatable sale price. You wore it once and realized it didn’t work. Later, you bought another version of a tunic, and now you love it! This happens to men, too—you take a risk on a lavender shirt and don’t like it but keep the shirt anyway. Father’s Day comes around and with it another lavender shirt, but this time it’s perfect! Often, we forget to give away or trade out the versions that don’t work. There was never really anything wrong with it; you simply found something you liked better. Make this an actionable item: every time you replace a style get rid of the old one (donate or swap) or move it to a different category (from work to play). This will help prevent a growing number of excess items in your wardrobe.

Where to Put Your Accessories

Once your clothes have been merchandised, move on to your accessories. Shoes are a prominent category. Remove the pairs you wear most from boxes or even those clear storage containers. (Save these for seasonal storage.) Face them toward you, or arrange them so one shoe is facing forward and the other heel forward, for a better sense of the look and to see when they start to get scuffed or appear old. Keep an eye on the heels, but understand that most people notice the front of your shoes first. Ladies, display pashminas in your closet so they are easy to add to an outfit, and keep handbags outside of their dust covers if you like to change them frequently. When we store items, we are less likely to wear them because they can’t be found at a moment’s notice.

Create a jewelry boutique—either in a well-organized drawer or atop a dresser. Hang necklaces and bracelets on a jewelry tree for easy access. Men, hang ties near dress shirts so combinations can easily be made, and store belts where you’ll notice wear or overuse. It’s important to hang as much as your space permits, keeping just the basics folded. Items in drawers or on shelves are often forgotten, so limit them to casual wear, layering pieces, and furnishings.

Managing Your Clothes

How do you know if you have too much? Every time I walk into a closet, I get questions about the smallest or biggest, most organized or disorganized closet I have ever seen and how my current client compares. The trick to knowing whether you own the right amount of clothing is noting if you have enough time in your schedule to wear it all. In any given closet, you need only fourteen to twenty-two pieces a season (not including accessories) for a successful and stylish work wardrobe. Gasp, I know! But less is truly more. And some pieces will overlap during a season change. Think back to the 20 percent of your wardrobe that you actually wear. Go count how many pieces of clothing that encompasses. While a style maven will happily double or triple that number, the reality is you should own and cultivate only the collection you can actually wear. Just as with food, portion control is important and everyone has a different tolerance.

Gabby loves shopping so much that barely a day goes by that she doesn’t come home with something new. Whether it’s on her lunch break or while traveling for work and hitting major shopping destinations between meetings, she packs her closet with fabulous items. And Gabby not only loves shopping, she has great taste, too! The challenge for her is that she doesn’t have time to pull together or coordinate outfits. She only enjoys the shopping experience. Similarly, Ted is a bargain shopper and loves to chase sales. It is almost impossible to stop him. He often buys clothes he has absolutely no need for because the thrill of the hunt and the bargain-basement price tags excite him. If you fall on either side of this spectrum, you share a common trait: you are buying more items—either “of the moment” trends or replenishment basics on sale—than you have days to wear them. If you find yourself permanently storing clothes (not counting off-season items) in more than three closets around your house, or in the attic, garage, or basement, then you have too much stuff. The only people who should have that much are the ones who can’t be seen shopping in public because of paparazzi or security issues. The average person needs a shoppable closet, not an entire department store. The size of your kitchen pantry is a good analogy for a closet—keep only as much food as you can eat, and only as much clothing as you can wear.

Seasonal Dressing

Depending where you live, your clothing may heavily favor one season or cover all four. Except in extreme climates, most wardrobes work well in three seasons. In terms of organization, make sure to circulate clothing for relevant seasons. If you have the luxury of another closet, go ahead and move things that you won’t be wearing once the weather cools or heats up. Just like your favorite stores, feature wearable clothes as often as you can. There is no need to sort through tweeds in the summer or linen in the winter. If you don’t have additional space, put the fabrics and colors for a different season at the back of the closet. This same advice applies for those storing various sizes of transitional clothing, either due to pregnancy, or a shift in weight in their everyday closet.

The Sizes in Your Closet

Many men and women fluctuate waist size in any given week by three to five pounds. For some, this means a size change (moving up or down); for others it’s a style adjustment (not wearing a particular type of garment until the proper weight returns). It is completely rational to have clothes that will accommodate your body as it fluctuates. However, using clothing of the wrong size in order to inspire yourself is not a good idea. Keeping items that are too small can be damaging to your self-esteem, and storing items three sizes too big (because you are scared you will become that size again) is not an effective use of space (physically or mentally).

When I first walked into Eddy’s closet, I was struck by how many labels he had posted around his space. At first glance, I thought this might be an ingrained solution for a habitual label maker to identify his clothes, but as I got up close, I saw these were old pieces of paper with words such as “fat” and “skinny”—and he wasn’t talking about skinny jeans! I asked him what all the labels meant and he explained that they identified danger zones—places he didn’t want to visit in his closet. “Fat” directed the eye to pants from when he was fat (seven years earlier) and “skinny” were for shirts from when he was skinnier (four years earlier). He had maintained the same body shape and weight for the last three years but he had kept his old clothes as reminders. He also had a damaged goods section—items labeled too short or too long, stained, or ripped. Eddy’s closet was a war zone; almost anything he touched could bring up a negative memory or feeling.

A well-organized closet is not always a shoppable one. The key to shoppability is maintaining a well-edited wardrobe. The methods we use to organize and store our clothing can either help or hinder our development. Style and clothing are tools to help you manage your weight—not rewards for losing it. We have been conditioned to think, “I’ll go shopping when I lose twenty pounds” instead of going shopping when we lose five so that we look and feel great—thus motivated to maintain or continue to shed the pounds.

Styling a life change is a long-term process. When a person makes the decision to lose a significant amount of weight (twenty-five to one hundred pounds), new clothes are a necessity and I work with clients monthly to help them manage their wardrobes as they drop sizes. This type of transition cannot be hidden behind baggy clothes or closed doors. My clients go to work every day, climbing the ladder of success. Depending on the pattern of weight loss, the move between sizes can occur every five to ten pounds. The trick to managing this process without going into debt is to remember that less is more and that looking good in a transition period doesn’t require the most expensive pieces. Still, you may be on a promotion track or interviewing while losing weight, and it’s important to keep your look current. The most rewarding part of this journey is watching people get to show off their hard work every step of the way.

I worked with Roberta during a critical professional juncture in her life. She was a rising star in the media world and on a quest to lose seventy-five pounds. While she was excited to shed the weight, she didn’t want every conversation in her professional life to focus on her body. We decided to update her wardrobe every time her size changed, about every four weeks, to keep her look seamless and modern. Losing a significant amount of weight is a long journey; your stops along the way should feel good and get you accustomed to your size. While dramatically changing size is rewarding, it can also be an emotional rollercoaster.

When we first started, Roberta didn’t really notice when her pants were too big—she just thought they were becoming comfortable. Trying on and wearing clothes in your appropriate size is often an issue of mental and emotional acceptance rather than a matter of physical ease. By the fourth time we bought new pants for Roberta, she could finally feel which ones were too big, and she began to associate that feeling with a need to change sizes. People who have lost a great deal of weight often see themselves in the mirror as bigger than they really are. It’s important to take baby steps and nurture the weight-loss process. By taking stock of her new body every month, Roberta got used to the feeling of clothing starting out a little tighter, stretching out, being washed and shrinking, then feeling larger as she lost weight. It also forced her to look in the mirror. Roberta became an expert at navigating these sensitive waters and started to revel in the woman she was becoming.

Stocking Your Closet with Work Essentials

You can’t build an ideal wardrobe without the proper foundation. Work essentials for both men and women are available at every price point and will help you climb the ladder of success. If you don’t already have them, stock up on these classic items, which you can restyle with accessories, and start getting more bang for your buck. (Remember, accessories take up less closet space than clothing!) These are foundation pieces that will help build (or update) your professional wardrobe. They’re dress-code-appropriate, can be worn in a variety of ways, and can be styled with trendier accessories for a fresh look.

Guidelines for Keeping your Clothes Clean

Now that you’ve created a shoppable closet, it is important to maintain your duds in mint condition. Be mindful and hang up clothes that can be worn again before they go to the dry cleaner. Pants can usually get three to five wears before starting to lose their shape; shirts crease much more quickly. Suiting and blazers can often go six weeks to six months before they need a cleaning, unless they have a stain or an odor. Be sure to clean all pieces of your suit together so they wear evenly. When washing clothes at home, pretreat stains in a timely manner and use Woolite Darks on black clothing and darker items to help maintain their color. When shoes beg for a polishing beyond your at-home ritual or need a sole replacement, take them to the cobbler to be refreshed.

There will come a time when you’ll have to decide to stop wearing a garment to the office. Learn to spot the signs a piece should be removed from public view: fading; permanent stains or overall dinginess; nubby or pilly surfaces; rips, tears, and fraying that cannot be fixed. If an item is truly damaged, consider retiring it from “at home” use as well—it may need to go to the wardrobe graveyard, where all once-great fashion goes in the end.

Parting Thoughts

You will discover your unique style DNA as you shop your closet. Each season, manage your wardrobe and take note of gaps that need to be filled. Stock your closet with a customized selection of clothing that is age-appropriate, on-trend, fits well, and is reflective of your lifestyle, and you will build a wardrobe that stands the test of time. As your signature style begins to emerge, it will become easier to get dressed and walk out the door feeling confident!