Kondo 0.3 – where I tackle the rest of my clothes

Having made a tentative start on my underwear I took on the issue of my clothes over the past week or so. I acquired a bunch of large, clear bags and I set about creating the wardrobe I wanted. By the way I will carefully label my “Kondo” posts so they can easily be skipped or “discarded” if this is not your thing.

Less Hanging, More Folding

I relied on some of the advice given by Marie Kondo, especially the idea of folding rather than using hangers. As a result I now have just three types of clothes hanging in my wardrobe.

1. Jackets
2. Skirts
3. Longer items – coats, dresses, trousers

4. 

That’s it. I discarded of a few items, not so many, but a few hand made items that I do not wear much, or that are tatty from too much wear. But mainly I just took out all the blouses, jumpers and summer skirts that were hanging on hangers. These items were folded up in the Kondo style and arranged with my other tops. I saved space which enabled me to bring my two coats out of the hall way and put them neatly in the wardrobe.

Wooly v. Cottony

The other breakthrough was to go with Miss Kondo’s “wooly things” and “cottony things”. Previously I had wooly jumpers and cottony T shirts stacked together. I also had all scarves jumbled together. By simply reclassifying I now have my wooly jumpers and scarves in my bigger drawers, my T shirts, blouses and cotton skirts folded on the shelves, and the lighter cottony/silky scarves have a slim drawer of their own.

As I threw out quite a few tops that had passed their sell by date (many of them white or lightly coloured – they just don’t last as longer as darker colours). I will buy new white and lemon tops in the next few months.  I also noticed that quite a few of my old cashmere jumpers (some are very old) are quite badly pilled and I should throw them away. But I still like them alot and replacing them is expensive. So I will start gradually replacing some of my older woollens, but I kept most for the moment.

Giving away hand made garments

A fellow blogger suggests finishing UFOs carefully and lovingly before giving them to the night shelter or other charitable cause. I decided to embrace this concept. Rather than regreting giving away clothes that I made and didn’t wear, or got bored with, I thought about the joy they might give a homeless person, or perhaps someone who appreciates quality. Maybe they will cut down the coat and make a skirt, or take out the satin lining and use if for another garment. In an ideal world I may have done this myself, but I want to move on to new projects now, rather than feel guilt about moving on from my home made clothes.

Shoes

I classified my shoes into outdoor and laceups; flat pumps and sandals; dressy. Or outdoors, indoors and rare. A big help. Now around 10 pairs of each are in separate drawers. I think this will work for me but it is not perfect as I can’t see everyone at a glance. Also I realised two or three of my favourite brogues are getting very tatty.

Hidden clothes

In the bedroom is an upper cupboard that contains out of season wear. Kondo suggests we keep our all our clothes in the one wardrobe, on show and available all the year round. I have sympathy with this view (apart from holiday clothes which I only wear on holiday).  I tipped out this cupboard, knowing it really included a lot of out of sight/out of mind items. I discarded many of them – at least half. But I also hung on to some – sentimental clothes that I cannot yet give up. But with time, maybe. They do spark joy but I don’t want to wear them. A bit stupid to hang on to them perhaps but I will for now.

I know I have quite a large additional selection of clothes in our storage area (“the vaults” – these ancient cubby holes are hidden under the road and would, in Georgian London, have been used to store meat, ice and wine). Kondo rules that any clothes not dealt with at the time are toast. I know if I comply this just means I will take this further selection to the charity shop. But wait! I owe it to those clothes to go through them carefully and check out if there are any loved orphans in there. I don’t feel I have the strength (mentally) to do this just yet. I want to get the house completely straight first. Am I a coward in this tidying lark – yes. But I will go there in due course.

BAG COUNT TO DATE = 3.5