So recently I had noticed that my overgrowing collection of clothes was starting to take up valuable space in my spare room as I was no longer able to fit them into my cupboard. I also noticed that most of the clothes were no longer me, however I had a hard time letting go as I could always find a way to style them or wear them.  

I also noticed there were a rather large amount of clothes that no longer fit me, but as I am trying to get into shape I did not want to let go of them. 

I have been thinking about what process I should take in order to change my wardrobe and style. I jumped on to schoolofaffluence.com and downloaded their style cheat sheet for assistance, most of it is great advice however I disagree with some of the colours that they say never to wear such as emerald green or deep blue. I often get compliments when I wear these colours and they make great colors for accessorising, not to mention Kate Middleton is often a big fan of these colours.   

I think this is probably due to the fact that Anna Bey has put a little of her personal taste in this guide, rather than just listing a set factual guide – but I suppose that is the thing about style, there are no real rules.  

I haven’t done a wardrobe cull in years and my personal style has not really changed for at least 6 or 7 years. I have noticed lately that my taste has really changed to the point where I am unhappy wearing my old style of clothing.  

So I put together the below process for anyone who is like me and finds this overwhelming and a little hard when it comes to throwing things out.  

1 – Throw out what you obviously don’t like: The easiest step should be done first to get the ball rolling. Throw out what you obviously don’t like. However as easy as this is, it doesn’t result in a whole lot being taken away from your wardrobe. 

2 – Throw out pieces that are falling apart: Throw out anything where you see holes, threads, stains that can’t be removed and pilling of your clothes. Even if it is just a little, this means your clothes are not going to last for years to come. Remember, it’s ok to throw away clothes that are not going to have a future due to deterioration. It’s not good for your mental health to wear clothes that are falling out, you deserve better than that! 

3 – Shop your wardrobe: Think about it. If your wardrobe was a shop, would you buy that piece again. If you wouldn’t even buy it on sale, then it’s really time to let go. I found this really helpful. Sure a piece might fit, it might be of good quality even, but if you wouldn’t walk into a shop and hand over your money to wear it, then maybe it just isn’t part of your style anymore.  

4 – Separate your life. This is the final stage. Separate your clothes that you have left into the three parts of your life. Your work wardrobe, your home wardrobe, and your going out with friends wardrobe.  Have the most amount of clothes for work, the second most for home, and the least for going out with friends. You have to organise it in that order as factually you spend the least amount of time in your life being out and about at restaurants and events with your friends.  

For your work Clothes; Try and have a 80% compatibility rule. This means that 80% of your work  wardrobe should be able to be mixed with the other pieces in your work collection, with a few wow pieces that have to be carefully selected with other clothes. I guess you could think of it as a capsule collection.  

For your home clothes; try and keep it practical enough that it would be  comfortable to wear all day but could also take you to do a quick grocery run looking acceptable. This is a lot harder than it sounds, but I found personally that grubby home clothes took up the most space in my wardrobe.  

Going out Wardrobe; I don’t go out a lot with my friends (usually once a fortnight) and I don’t go to a lot of places, so I made a little calculation and said if I was to go out to an event once a month for 8 weeks I wouldn’t want to repeat what I wore in that period. So that means I created 8 ‘going out’ pieces. If you have clothes that are compatible, great, but if you have a few key pieces that can only be worn together, simply put the whole ‘look’ together on a clothes hanger and keep as a mini capsule outfit. 

5 – Jewellery, Bags and Scarves.  
 

I looooove my accessories, so basically I set three rules and if one of them applied, I threw it out.  For Jewllery – If it was tarnished (of poor quality and not pure silver which can be cleaned nicely) missing beads stones – it went.  
 
If it was peeling or falling apart (fake leather handbags) it got thrown out. If it was a style that I could not match with anything I currently owned or would not by again in a shop (scarves) I threw it out.  

6 – Deciding how you will part with your items. Because I had so many items, and a lot of them were still wearable, I decided to try and sell as much as I could. This meant I wanted to sell them. I decided to go the eBay route but as eBay is mainly swamped with mostly goods mass produced form China and there are tons of small purchases to be made, I needed to compete. So I put out a bundle for a set price I would be happy for.  

I set bundles of 5 or 6 items for  $20 with $15 postage.  

If it doesn’t sell I will simply donate it all to charity.  

Using this method I was able to cull about 40 – 50 pieces of clothing. I still have a rather large wardrobe and I am still in the early stages of my journey, so I will do another cull maybe in about 6 months time when I swap over my summer wardrobe to my winter wardrobe and have hopefully lost a little weight. I have noticed already how much better I mentally feel now knowing all that old clothing ( and the baggage it carried with it) is gone and now that I have all that extra space.

xxx Miss J