Organizing Chaos: Wardrobe

Unfortunately, there is a specific moment when the realization takes place in every person. My mom used to be after me for years to pull up my socks, but I was never inspired enough. I thank Allah for my moment which came years later, in 2008 when I moved abroad and I’m so much happier now. I realized that folding or putting a shirt back on the hanger, the moment I take it off doesn’t take more than a minute, but it makes all the difference.

I am proud to say that there is not a thing in my closet now which I can’t wear right now.

There has to be a system. Like all clothes for washing go straight in the laundry bucket, wash anything that gets a stain immediately, all clothes for ironing go straight into the ironing basket, and anything torn or with missing buttons goes straight into a bag for tailor chores or sewing work. Perks of living in Pakistan that you can ask your maid to wash stains (or iron) for you, otherwise have your cleaning gloves and your massi-mode ready.

Handy Wardrobe Tips

Luckily I had the experience of working with JD Sports which has the highest level of standards on Oxford Street. We were taught not only how to fold clothes but also how to measure the folding using boards to make sure its good enough. That experience gave me a lot of tips on managing your garments using minimum space.

I realized that little things like keeping all hangers in one direction and all clothes facing one way inside the cupboard is important, as it saves the time finding them and it looks good as well.

1. Folding jeans

Just a little trick I learned there to fit jeans in a drawer is to fold them lengthwise once, then roll them up, as shown in the picture. This way they take lesser space and won’t get wrinkled either.

2. Similar items

It is best to keep similar clothing items together in the closet.

All sweaters of each color in one place, all tops together and so on. Just suit your need, in the UK, I kept my kurtas in my attic as they were almost never used. It is a good idea to keep off-season shoes and clothes away from the easy access cupboards.

3. Eye level

I had the experience of learning the art of merchandising in retail.  The eye level racks are the ones that have the most value. The best sellers are always kept at such prime locations; they are never kept on a shelf where customers can’t access them without help. Hard to access, really high, or really low shelves are kept for unpopular clothing lines which are not doing well sales wise.

So basically our popular clothing line (for example night suits) should be placed around eye level and easy to access shelf in our cupboard for our own convenience.

Formals or wedding clothes may be inconveniently placed as we won’t need them for months, if not years. 

4. Number of clothes

As far as clothes are concerned, I remember mama used to say that one should have six sets of casual clothes and three formal clothes in total. They should be fully planned from head to toe. That would make life so much easier. But of course, that would be in an ideal world.  We all want to mix and match and have a lot of choices. Which is not bad, as long as we make sure we are taking care of our things (not throwing them around, keeping them organized) and giving some clothes for charity on a routine basis.

We should always keep in mind that if we haven’t used anything in a year, we have to give that away so we only keep the items that we use, nothing else. 

5. All hangers in one direction

Following is a little tip I gathered from an amazing article called ’53 Seriously Life-Changing Clothing Organization Tips’.

6. Buy one, give one away!

I always thought shopping is a waste of time. It really is. The best thing is to stick to the rule that before we buy something, we have to think of what we’re replacing it with.

We buy one new piece of clothing, and so we have to give something of ours for charity. 

That is the only way forward. Many of us have a problem of not being able to part with our things. We get too emotionally attached to our stuff. It is important to realize two factors. Ultimately we will be leaving everything behind and have to part with all the worldly items that we love to collect. Secondly, we are depriving a poor person the right of wearing the clothes we could have given for charity as we don’t wear them. One can’t possibly collect everything unless we want the directors of ‘Hoarders’ or ‘How Clean is Your House’ to come looking for us for their next episode.

I enjoy using organizers such as trouser, tie, belt, scarf hangers and canvas folding shelves. They make it so easy to pick up the color of trousers, scarf or belt you are going to wear for work. It also saves time in the morning.

Tie hanger makes it easy to pull out the one you wantTie hanger makes it easy to pull out the one you wantTie hanger makes it easy to pull out the one you want

The best part is that it gives you the leisure for that last snooze on your alarm clock, that to me means more than anything else in the world. In Islamabad, I used normal hangers for my scarves as shown in the following picture:

Wardrobe fragrance