They say that most of us wear 20% of our wardrobe 80% of the time and I am definitely in that category! It’s only been the last 4-5 years that my wardrobe has really expanded, as I was a veterinary nurse for many years I didn’t have a “work wardrobe” as I had a uniform which consisted of a couple of pairs of attractive Bottle Green trousers and matching tunics. The rest of my wardrobe consisted of going out clothes, casual clothes and a black suit for funerals and interviews.

After giving up vet nursing and working in an office environment I needed to get myself proper work clothes so I went on a shopping spree getting dresses, tops, trousers, shoes, handbags, jewellery, etc so I could look all nice and professional, it was a lovely change from the days of wearing a uniform that got covered in pee, poo, blood (sometimes my own if we had a temperamental feral cat in or a Hondurian Milk Snake), vomit, fur on a daily basis! I also continued to buy clothes for going out, weddings, or just because I liked something.  Then when I first started my IVF treatment I had to buy baggy clothes as you get really bloated and had to hide my tummy, I started to gain weight and four IVFs later I’ve gained a dress size so I had to buy more clothes to fit me.  So by now my wardrobe and the five drawers that I keep all my clothes in are ready to explode and hard to close!

I did on occasions donate some clothes when those charity bags came through the letterbox but it was never enough to make a dent in the amount that I had, plus I still bought more clothes anyway.  Even though my wardrobe and drawers were bursting with clothes I still wore the same items and if I had a night out I would say “I’ve got nothing to wear!” and then go out and buy something.  Now that I’ve gone back to work in the veterinary industry and wearing a uniform again (thankfully it’s black!) I will no longer be wearing my office clothes so I decided that I needed to do a clothing purge where everything was taken out and considered and not just tossing a few items into a charity bag.  A couple of weeks before The Purge we went to Ikea where I purchased some wooden hangers, shoe boxes, a wardrobe organiser and matching drawers as I meant business with this project.  If you need to do a clothing purge too here are my tips:

Take everything out and I mean everything, scarves, shoes, bags and lay them on your bed (apart from your shoes, you don’t want any nasty things on your bedding, yuk!).  You may have Clothes Mountain  on your bed like I did once you have done this.

Tip 2

Make 4 piles; keep, sell, donate and chuck.

Tip 3

Assess each item, is it something you will wear? That will go in the keep pile. It’s never been worn/just worn once and you have no idea why you bought it? Then sell it on sites such as eBay, Gumtree, etc if you have the time.  You have worn it a number of times, no longer fits and it’s still in good condition, then donate it so someone else can get the use of it and by doing this you are helping a good cause at the same time.  If it’s stained, ripped, holey, no one would be seen dead in it, then that should go in the chuck pile.

Tip 4

When putting your clothes back into the wardrobe don’t use wire hangers as this can misshapen your clothes, using wooden or the flocked kind are much better as it keeps the shape and also prevents your clothes from slipping off the hangers.  If you are putting things back in drawers then fold them by following the seams if you can so they don’t have an extra crease or two in them.

Tip 5

Admire your tidy and organised wardrobe where you can see all the clothes that you own clearly and will wear often; noting what you don’t as you are unlikely to wear it again if it hasn’t been worn in a year.  Where you can now look at your clothes and say ” I know what I will wear” rather than “I’ve got nothing to wear!”

Tip 6

Check the overall balance of your items, if you have got rid of quite a few things then you may find you have more work clothes than casual or vice versa, you need a new Winter jacket or bikinis for your holiday then make a note so you know what you need to buy to fill in the gaps in your wardrobe.  However don’t take this to mean go on a shopping splurge and then cram your new things into your nice, tidy and organised wardrobe/drawers or you will be back to square one again!

I probably got rid of a third of my clothes, I am selling some of my good clothes that have hardly been worn or not at all on eBay and a big Ikea bag went to the charity shop which included boots and handbags. There are probably other clothes that I will get rid of later if I find that I don’t wear them, I definitely won’t be needing any jumpers this year though as I have quite a lot and even found ones I forgot I had. Three weeks on my drawers and wardrobe are still tidy and it’s nice to just be able to pull out something to wear rather than rummage around looking for something and even wear items that I forgot I had.

Is your wardrobe organised and clothes worn on a regular basis or do clothes jump out of the drawers when you open them?