How to “Spring Clean” Your Closet and Plan Your Spring “Look”

What I love about the change in seasons is the effect it has on what we wear. Come October, I am oh so happy to put on my coat and boots. But come March (*cough* i think it was February this year…) I am ecstatic to shed my layers in favor of breezy dresses and shorts. The new season means a chance to wear clothes you haven’t worn in months and perhaps even buy a few new things!

I did a trial run of this closet cleaning and style focusing last fall, and have come all that much closer to perfecting my process for spring, and I’m going to share that very process with you.

In this post I am going to take you through two processes (step by easy step):

The first - Spring cleaning your closet.
This entails packing up winter clothing and accessories, removing unwanted and ill-fitting clothing, and organizing for an easily accessible wardrobe!

The second - Planning and visualizing your “look” for the season.
Let’s face it, it is a lot easier to get dressed and ready for your day when you have an idea or picture in your head of what you want to look like. For the past couple of seasons I have determined what kind of “look” or “style” I wanted to have for the season, and stuck to it. Instead of choosing from every style, every hairdo, every makeup color, I had a set “look”. Too many choices can be overwhelming, and I’m going to show you how you can narrow it down and dress confidently every day.

 

How-to Spring Clean Your Closet in 5 easy steps:

1. Look through your closet, chest of drawers, trunk, under bed storage, or what have you, and pack away any clothing that is too heavy, darker colors, thick fabrics, or anything that you won’t wear in the warmer months (Ex: I packed up my winter coats, tweed jacket, flannel shirts, burgundy, winter red, and hunter green colored apparel and accessories).  I pack mostly in plastic storage bins with mothballs and/or cedar. Some clothes that I think I might wear in the summer I pack in a large shoe box and place on a shelf in the closet. For more tips on how to store clothing click here.

2. Take all of your clothes, shoes, jewelry, and accessories out of their respective places. Yes, all of them. Look at everything. If you don’t like it when you look at it, put it aside. If you have several items you dislike, add them to that pile. You can donate them to a charity later. Goodwill is a good place to donate, as is one of our favorites here in Nashville, Thriftsmart.

3.Try everything on. If something doesn’t fit or needs mending and you can fix it in a reasonable amount of time, then set it aside in a “project pile”. Otherwise, add it to the “donate” pile.

4. Now it’s time to put everything away! Place hanging clothes in closet and organize them for maximum exposure. Some people organize by color, some by style, and some (like me) organize by what you like to wear together. This way you can see what you have and more readily grab it when you need it. Next place everything back that belongs in your chest of drawers. I like to roll my tops so I can see what each pattern and color looks like without having to rummage through a pile.

5. Enjoy your easily accessible wardrobe full of season/weather appropriate, well-fitting clothes!

 

How-to Plan Your Spring Look in 6 easy steps:

1. Keep in mind the clothing you have (hopefully you’ve just cleaned out your closets), the size and shape of your body, and your coloring.

2. Time to get inspired! Browse websites, fashion blogs, and lookbook. If you favor the old school like me, grab a stack of magazines and catalogs, and get to clipping! Any outfit, hairstyle, makeup, color scheme, or item you find inspiring, cut it out! (Or if you are doing the web, drag the image to a PDF so you can print it out).3. Go through the images you’ve collected and try to narrow them down to a “look” that fits both your personality and your lifestyle. You may be a 90′s grunge kid at heart but if you have to wear a suit to work it’s just going to make you sad to see images of outfits you can’t wear. In that case, you’d want to find work-appropriate attire that played to your attitude. Bring in accessories and tops to liven up the pantsuit.

(I personally gravitate towards a cross between a modern, sophisticated lady and a bohemian rock vibe. Conflicted? Maybe…but by that I mean I love the rock star look but the words “don’t leave the house in kitchen clothes” from my mother and grandmother are forever engrained in my head. I like to look dressed up but at the same time not. )

4. Pin your images to a corkboard or similar backing. You can then display this wherever you would like to inspire you each morning (and when you shop for new things, you can keep this board in mind)!You can make as many boards as you like! I have one for my outfit inspiration, and one for my jewelry and makeup inspiration. The latter I put on black cardstock and used packaging tape to “laminate” it! I then put it as a placemat of sorts on the dresser where I store my jewelry and makeup

5. The final step is making a shopping list of the items needed to complete your “look”. If it is more than you can afford ( and let’s be honest, it probably will be), prioritize your list. For instance, high up on my list are sheer blouses, mint colored jeans, studded loafers, nude lipstick, and stacking bracelets. On the bottom of my list are cobalt colored jeans, a colored maxi skirt, and flowy, patterned shorts.

6. Shop for the items you can get, then have fun getting dressed each day!

 

I’d love to hear if anyone else out there does something similar to this, or if you try it after reading this, what you thought!

xo,

ashley

P.S. – if I’m able to get J to do this for himself  you can all applaud me and my skills of persuasion

P.P.S – on second thought, the chance of him (or most men, for that matter) putting this much effort into their “look” is dismal, but I’m sure he’d be happy to let me do it for him! And perhaps I’d like that even better…