How to edit and organise your wardrobe using the KonMari Method
How do you feel when you open your wardrobe?
Can you dress with ease, knowing that it contains only the pieces you love and that everything fits and flatters, or do you see a rail of clothing that makes you feel stressed and like you have nothing to wear?
If it’s the latter, you are certainly not alone! We live in a world of fast fashion, where we can order clothes with a click of the button and so, unless we take the time to edit what we own or shift our consumer habits, we will inevitably end up with cupboards and drawers full of clothes we rarely or never wear.
Here are the steps to help you achieve a stress free and curated wardrobe full of the clothes you love.
Imagine your ideal lifestyle
It might be tempting to jump in and start pulling all your clothes out, but before you do that, set aside some time to envisage your ideal lifestyle and how you want your clothes to make you look and feel. For example, when I tidied my clothes, I envisaged being able to get dressed easily. To be able to open my wardrobe and see a capsule collection of clothes I love, with pieces that could be paired easily. I wanted my collection to be made up of quality basics that will stand the test of time. I also wanted to replicate the look and feel of a boutique shop such as clothes hanging freely and on uniform hangers. Take some time to think about what you would like and write your thoughts down or collate images from magazines or on Pinterest. Having this ‘vision’ will help to guide you as you tidy.
Set up your workspace
Find a spot in your home where you can gather all of your clothes together, and I mean all of them! If the majority of your clothes are stored in or near your bedroom, make sure your bed and floorspace are clear to use. It can be helpful to create some labels to keep clothes organised, once you’ve checked them, for example, ‘Keep’ for those clothes you love and ‘Donate’, ‘Recycle’ and ‘Bin’ for any clothing you decide to discard. You might also consider categories such as ‘To sell’ or ‘Try on later’ and ‘Fix’ or ‘Dry clean’. It’s entirely up to you how granular you wish to make it, but I would recommend keeping things as simple as possible.
The power of the pile
Now the fun begins! Pull out all your clothes from your wardrobes, drawers and anywhere else you store your clothes, hallway, loft, garage, car! It’s amazing once you start to look, how many places your clothing are stored, and this is why the KonMari Method advocates tidying by category, rather than location. Whilst many of us have attempted to ‘tidy the bedroom’ or ‘tidy the hallway’ this approach does not take into account that we tend to store the same kind of items in different places. When you tidy by location you end up tidying up the same things, yet you never have the opportunity to grasp the overall volume of each type of item you own.
By gathering all your clothes together, one can’t help but be confronted with how much you have accumulated. This is known as the ‘power of the pile’.
Ask yourself ‘does it spark joy?’
Unlike more traditional methods, the KonMari Methodô reframes the act of tidying in a more positive light by focusing on what to keep, rather than what to discard.
The standard for determining whether you keep something is to ask yourself if the item sparks joy. If you are not quite sure what spark joy means, a good place to start is to hold something that you love and wear often in your hands. Consider how it makes you feel and what it is that sets this apart from your other clothes? Do you love the colour? Is it comfortable? Does it flatter? Ultimately, it is this feeling you are aiming to experience with all your clothes. As you work through each item, you will find that you quickly begin to hone your ability at determining what sparks joy.
If something does not spark joy, let it go with gratitude
We tend to attach feelings to our clothes and come up with reasons to keep things, even when we no longer love them or wear them. It’s easy to convince yourself that you might need it ‘one day’ or that it ‘cost a lot of money’. If you truly love something, then keep it with confidence but if it doesn’t, see this as a learning opportunity. Why don’t you love it anymore? Is it the colour, size, style or fabric? Did you buy it in a hurry for a special occasion but haven’t worn it since? Did you buy it simply because it was in a sale? All of these questions will help to shape the kind of consumer you will become going forward. Be kind to yourself, thank the item for its service and let it go with gratitude.
Give the items you love a home
Deciding what to keep and what to discard is the first step in tidying your home. The second is to ensure what you keep has a designated home, because without it, your home will quickly become cluttered. Once things have a home, you and everyone in your family will know where things are and importantly, where to put them back! It can be tempting to go out and by all sorts of storage solutions but ideally you should wait until you’ve completed your tidying journey. This is because, you may find that you simply have fewer things and therefore do not need as much storage, or that in tidying the rest of your home, existing storage becomes available.
The basic rule for organising things is to store like with like. So, in the case of clothing, store dresses together, cardigans together, t-shirts together and so on. Now, how to store them? The method advocates folding your clothes and storing them vertically. There are numerous benefits to storing your clothes in this way, not least, the file fold makes better use of your storage space, you can see what you own and it’s aesthetically pleasing! Not sure how to fold? Let Marie show you how to master the KonMari fold.