I’ve scoured the internet high and low, and paid close attention to professional organisers, to bring you this guide on how to organise your wardrobe.
Having recently given my wardrobe a complete overhaul, I can confirm it IS worth the effort to declutter and organise your wardrobe — making getting dressed in the morning so much easier and giving you all those happy feelings only a perfectly organised space can.
Related article: How to style and organise your pantry
Related article: Walk-in wardrobe and closet inspo
1. Declutter
Start organising your wardrobe by sorting through everything. Because there’s no point having a perfectly organised closet of clothes you rarely (or never!) wear.
How to declutter your wardrobe?
Take everything out of your wardrobe and sort it into piles that make sense to you. Perhaps you would group all work tops together, all casual tops together, all jeans in one pile and outerwear in another pile etc. Or perhaps you mainly only wear casual clothes so it would make more sense to group by colour or item type. The aim of this step is to get a good understanding of everything that’s in your wardrobe, where you can compare like for like clothing and accessories.
Hold each item of clothing and make a decision. Do you want to keep, sell, donate or discard it? Naturally the easiest answer is to say keep. It almost doesn’t even require a decision. But if you do this process well, you’ll curate a wardrobe of clothes you actually like and wear. Plus, you could make some extra money along the way to invest in other items you’ve been lusting after, like a chic new workwear outfit.
- Keep: only keep items you love and have worn in the past 12 months, that fit you well, or are special occasion clothes that you can see a use for in future. There’s no point holding onto a special top you haven’t worn in 15 years, items like this are just taking up space and holding you back from having a wardrobe you love. Before you decide to keep an item, try it on and look at yourself in the mirror. If you feel good in it, then it’s a keeper!
- Sell: you could make some serious coin when decluttering your wardrobe! Use sites like Depop, eBay and The RealReal, to move items on and earn money along the way. Even making $10-$20 per item can quickly add up.
- Donate: another way to keep circular fashion going is to donate clothes to your local op shop. Any clothes that don’t fit, aren’t your style but are still in good condition are welcome.
- Discard: sometimes an item has run its course and the only thing left to do is throw it away. If it’s beyond repair, stained badly, shrunk too small or otherwise damaged, take one last look and see if you could recycle the fabric and otherwise throw it out.
Take action. The best time to follow through and sell or donate the items is within 2 days of decluttering your wardrobe. So don’t keep clothes to donate in the boot of your car for weeks. Make the trip as quickly as you can and feel the relief of being one step closer to your dream closet. Similarly, you may have a huge pile of clothes you want to sell. Set a realistic task of listing 5 items per day. Once the sales start coming through, you’ll be more motivated to keep going.
Extra decluttering tips:
Some helpful questions to ask yourself when decluttering are: If I saw this in a store, would I buy it? Have I worn it in the last 6-12 months? Do I know someone who would get more use out of this than me?
A good tip is to work by clothing type, such as all pants and then all tops, so you can compare similar clothes at the same time, making decisions easier.
There’s a fabulous resource from Planet Ark here on what you can do with items you no longer need so nothing ends up in landfill — including donating work clothes to organisations like Dress for Success, donating saleable clothes to charities, and even what to do with damaged clothes so they are recycled or reused.
2. Find the right storage solutions for your needs
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt, the trick to keeping a space organised is to invest in the right storage solutions. Unless everything has a ‘home’ and items are easy to access, tidy spaces won’t stay tidy for long.
Even if you’re limited on space, there are fabulous products on the market now that can help you maximise every nook and cranny of your wardrobe. I’m going to run through a few of my favourites…
Elfa range at Howards storage
Not going to lie, these products aren’t cheap but there’s a good reason they have a cult following — quality, durability and design.
If like me, you find your wardrobe doesn’t offer enough functional storage space, a few of these products might be the solution you’ve been looking for. Although our wardrobes are quite large, we only had rails to hang clothes and this made storing T-shirts, knitwear and other clothing a challenge.
I designed a new internal wardrobe solution that incorporated Elfa’s range of pullout drawers, pant racks, shelves and shoe racks. Their flexible products clip into brackets so it’s easy to change or move things about as your needs change.
You can browse the range here.
Hanging storage solutions
If you’re renting or looking for more budget-friendly options, there’s a wide range of hanging storage solutions that allow you to maximise the vertical space in your wardrobe.
Hanging fabric shelf organisers are perfect for storing folded clothing. Some ranges have been designed to fit baskets which can act like drawers.
Hanging shoe racks use a similar design but with smaller pockets to fit your shoes.
Depending on the type of wardrobe you have, a storage solution to hang over the back of your door could provide some much-needed storage space. You can find plastic or fabric shoe holders that hang over the backs of doors through to metal shelving units.
Storage baskets
I’ve never met a basket I didn’t like and the uses for them around the home are endless. In the wardrobe, I love using baskets to keep smaller items together and tidy. For example, putting all scarves in a basket.
Baskets are also a great way to maximise high overhead cupboards that may otherwise be wasted.
My favourite store to shop for baskets is Freedom and you can check out their range online.
Invest in quality hangers
Do your clothes a favour and switch to quality hangers with smooth, rounded edges. Timber hangers offer a luxe look but are quite bulky. So if you’ve got limited hanging space, those slimline velvet hangers are ideal.
Small boxes are your friend
Watch any episode of ‘Tidying up’ with Marie Kondo and you’ll learn one of her favourite tricks to keeping drawers organised is to use a range of smaller boxes inside to separate items.
If the inside of your drawers looks like a mixed salad, why not give this technique a try? I find it’s also helpful for standing up items. And when you store things upright, it’s easier to see everything at a glance.
Design from scratch
The solutions I’ve mentioned above are to make the most of a wardrobe you already have or to retrofit solutions but if I had my time again, I would take more time to design my wardrobe from the start.
There are great services out there to help you to find a stylish solution for all your storage needs, such as Freedom’s wardrobe service here.
3. Organise by category and colour
You’ve decluttered, picked up the right storage solutions and now it’s time to put everything back into your wardrobe. But how best to organise things? Professional organisers agree, organising by category (ie all pants together) and by colour makes life easiest.
You can also save a lot of time using this wardrobe organisation system — making it quicker to get dressed in the morning and when packing clean clothes away.
4. Separate the seasons
If wardrobe space is an issue, don’t clog your wardrobe with clothes you won’t wear for months. There’s no point looking at summer dresses in the peak of winter or having bulky coats take up space when it’s hot outside.
Use space saving bags or utilise space elsewhere in your home to keep these clothes packed away until you need them.
5. One in, one out policy
Your wardrobe should now be looking decluttered and organised with every item in its place. Here come the tough part — keeping it this way!
A tip many professional organisers swear by is the ‘one in, one out’ policy where for every new item you purchase, you need to let an old one go.
This trick means you’re continually editing your wardrobe and only keeping clothes that fit and make you feel good.
I hope you’ve picked up some new ideas to organise your wardrobe! If you’ve got other storage tricks or hacks, share them in the comments below so we can all give them a try.
More home organising ideas
This article was first published in November 2020 and continues to be updated with the latest information and tips.
