Organizing My Closet With Next Season’s Clothes

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of InStyle®, PEOPLE®, and StyleWatch®. The opinions and text are all mine.

I swoon over the mega closets that I see on TV. You know the ones that could double as a studio apartment? Yes, I love LOOKING at these because I definitely do not have one! Granted, I do have a walk in closet (which is shared with Joe), but there’s not enough space to have all 4 seasons of clothes easily reachable. So I’ve learned to get a little creative with storage solutions and slowly learning the art of downsizing!

While some may find this task …. well a task, I look forward to it. Even more than that. I ENJOY it. Yes, call me crazy, but pulling out my upcoming season of clothes and doing a refresh of my closet 4 times a year is my form of relaxation. My perfect ‘me time’. Obviously, any chance to organize something in our home brings me joy, but it’s also so fun to swap out my wardrobe with clothes that FEEL new (aka – haven’t been worn for several months). It’s my zero cost shopping spree.

When I was doing my weekly shopping at Kroger this past weekend, I grabbed the new Style Watch while at checkout which got me excited for spring clothing season. Now I’ll never be known for my style, but I do like a new wardrobe refresh as much as the next and some fun inspiration.

I turn on some music, grab a glass of wine and a couple magazines for inspiration for the next couple hours of clothing and organization! Now how could that sound like a chore?

The very first thing I do is pull out all my current wardrobe out of the closet. Some of my current season clothing can actually be worn all year round, such as jeans and a couple sweaters. Seattle is known for their rain, but NOT extreme temperatures! I take those pieces and put them back in the closet.

I use this organization session as an opportunity to sort through and get rid of any current season clothes that I haven’t worn in the last couple months. No, I don’t LOVE getting rid of things, but I follow a simple system to sort through items in any room. By creating baskets to donate, fix, sell, or hold, I’m able to get rid of pieces that I just don’t wear. (My ‘hold’ basket is for clothing that I’m just not ready to get rid of but I know I should! I hold on to these until the next season to make a final decision).

Grab my downloadable labels to help!

When evaluating each piece, I ask myself the following:

• Have I worn this recently?
• Will I wear it soon?
• Do you have similar pieces taking up valuable space?
• Does it fit?
• Is the piece stretched, stained, damaged, or torn?

 

I follow the same process to review each piece of upcoming season clothing to decide if any need to go in the donate, fix, sell or hold baskets. Once I’ve hopefully purged a couple pieces (???), I sort all the clothes based on type. Casual t-shirts, dressy shirts, shorts, skirts, dresses, pants, etc. This is also a good opportunity to find a couple more pieces to purge.

For example, you can see I’m apparently a big fan of red: 4 red dresses and 4 red sweaters!

Don’t forget about shoes, jewelry, purses and scarves.

Our closet came with lots of built in wire shelving. I do love the shelving options, but it does take away from hanging space. After some time getting used to this set up, I found that I actually prefer the shelving when used with large canvas baskets. One basket for each category of clothing ….

made easier with these printable labels.

When placing the upcoming season clothing back in to my closet, I follow a couple tips to make the most use out of my side of the closet:

• Pants are always placed on multi pant hangers to take up less room. I have one for jeans and one for dress pants.
• Clothing is organized by type (pants, t-shirts, dresses, etc).
• While it’s the trend to put shoes in clear containers with PHOTOS on the front, for me it’s more effort than it’s worth. I’m able to see through the clear containers easily without a photo on the front. Plus I don’t have to swap out the photo when I swap out my seasonal shoes!
• Clothing that is used more frequently should be the EASIEST to reach. For me that’s t-shirts, lettings and sweatshirts. Yes, working from home has its benefits! My dresses are pretty hard to reach 🙂 .
• Bulkier items, such as sweaters, go on the hanging shelf, while slimmer pieces such as t-shirts and skirts are either hung up or go in baskets.
• Purses go in basket or on the shelves to extend their life, instead of hanging on hooks.

While I like to find a system that works (forever), these quarterly clothing swap sessions are a good opportunity to evaluate what’s working and what’s not. I decided that a foldable stool would be a great addition to the closet to reach the upper shelves. I try to use vertical space as much as possible!