If you’ve read Quintessential Style, you know that after college Janna took a job as a tour manager for travelers to the Holy Land.  Years later, after she began offering closet makeovers as a client service, she often found when she entered a muddled, overstuffed closet, the only metaphor that came to mind was:  Your closet is a river…NOT THE DEAD SEA!

Apparently the dead sea is completely landlocked, which means that if anything goes in…it never comes out. Ergo, the similarity to my closet–and maybe yours–we bring IN loads of stuff, but we never take anything OUT. Janna reminds us that clothing should flow through our closets like water passing through a stream.  It shouldn’t be held captive there for all eternity.

The Real Dead Sea

In my previous blog, I showed you my actual closet. It took a while, but I finally got everything off the floor, which made an immediate difference.  Then it was time to go through the stuff.  KEEP, DISCARD, DONATE.

(And when I say “keep,” I don’t automatically mean keep it in your most frequently-used closet.  If you have seasonal items, travel clothing, formalwear, or even costumes, find another place to store them.  Since you probably don’t wear them very often,  they shouldn’t be taking up valuable closet real estate.)

You can really find out a lot about yourself when you are forced to pull out and organize everything in your closet.  Here’s what I found out:

I’m a box-hoarder.  I keep boxes even when there’s nothing in them: jewelry boxes, perfume boxes, shoe boxes.

I also have a fetish for scarves.  I love them.  But I don’t think I need 67. Yes, I counted.

Before

After

As you can see, scarves were everywhere.  It’s like they started breeding in my closet.  Look at this photo…I even had twins!

I have an obsession with tote bags, too.  But I’ll spare you the photo.

Anyway, there’s just no getting around it.  The only way to revamp your closet is to do what I did:  Go through it and decide what is truly supporting the lifestyle you are living TODAY. 

Stay tuned for this continuing closet saga…

Click here to see my organized closet.