How to streamline your wardrobe
Or: Make your wardrobe work for you instead of against you
As quite some of my friends (and family, and colleagues) know, I got a bit obsessed with colour and style analysis a couple of years ago, as a way of drastically reducing the number of items I have in my closet, and the time I have to spend on shopping & getting dressed in the morning.
As since having lived out of a suitcase for half a year in Japan, I’ve discovered the joys of not having to spend a lot of time & effort on picking out what to wear (because, I only had three outfits to pick from).
Having a small apartment and trying to save up for a long-term trip also made me motivated to own & buy less, and becoming aware of the huge impact of the fashion industry on the environment also definitely played a role…
And this whole obsession had let me to travel around with just a carry-on wardrobe for half a year, and still look half-decent (ok, I did buy some extra sweaters in the meanwhile…):
You don’t have to become as obsessed with it as I did (please don’t), but I think taking a look at your wardrobe to organise it better could help anyone! Here I’m going to note down the first steps I’d advise anyone to take, with follow-up steps in case you want to go further:
How to start streamlining your wardrobe: Set some rules
Like what kind of colours you include in your wardrobe, in what combinations, what kind of shapes & fabrics you want to stick to.
I for example “installed” the following rules for myself:
- Trousers or jeans are always slim-fitting and high-waist
- So I can stick to shorter tops, sweaters & jackets
- Shoes, trousers & jackets are grey or black, tops and sweaters in bright colours
- I try to combine dark with light colours to create contrast
I don’t always follow these rules (as sometimes I just really like to wear funky trousers), but you’ll see that most of the time I do.
This has enabled me to:
- Pick out basically any combination of items from my closet as they all go well together!
- As such reduce the number of items in my closet, as I don’t need an extra jacket to go with that one pair of trousers..
- If I need to go shopping, I can scan the entire store in 5 minutes and select what fits my wardrobe and what doesn’t
- And even already select stores up-front based on the styles and colours they sell
It has saved me time in the morning while getting dressed and while shopping, saved me money on buying the “wrong” items or needing to get extra jackets / shoes / whatev to go with something that doesn’t fit the rest of my wardrobe, and my wardrobe in general just takes up much less space these days!
Some tips for you to get started with streamlining your wardrobe
There are already some easy steps you can take today to make some decisions on how you want to “design” your wardrobe, like I did to mine. You can take inspiration from the rules I set myself to get an idea of what to look at & go for:
- Take a look at your closet and make two piles: one with clothes you often wear and (presumably) feel comfortable in, and one with things that just keep gathering dust at the bottom of your closet, and you really have to force yourself to put on.
- See if there are certain colours that keep coming back in one pile vs the other. I believe we usually have a pretty good sense of what looks good on us, and we gravitate towards that as it makes us feel better. Does one pile has more subdued / “softer” colours than the other? Could you describe them with a term, like “autumn-y” or “airy”?
- And concerning style: are there certain characteristics (like narrow vs wide-fitting, high vs low-waist, long vs short) which keep coming back in one pile vs another? Here also pay attention to what characteristics make go well together for bottoms vs tops, so you can perhaps already start deriving “rules” to make sure everything fits well together :)
- Select some outfits that you really like wearing, and see how they match together, what characteristics / colours / shapes make them “work”.
- Now try to capture this in a list, like the one I wrote. If you go into a store you can “test” how much easier this can make the shopping & clothing-selection process, and whether the rules you set for yourself really help you to select the right items that instantly feel good!
Ready to take it up a notch?
In case you’re willing to spend more time (& money) on making your wardrobe serve you even better, here are some next steps you could take:
Look up colour palettes that represent your preferred wardrobe best
If you want to not just rely on the colours that are already in your closet, but find out what other colours might suit you as well, you can dig a bit into the different “colour profiles / palettes” that are out there. There are several frameworks out there and they all argue to be the best, but I think any one of them could already get you a far way.
The great thing about these is that all the colours of a palette tend to go well together, and if you pick the right one for your skin tone, they will also make you look fabulous! As you’d be surprised at how colours can make you look either radiantly alive or like you just smoked twelve packs of cigarettes…
Here’s a picture with a nice overview of all the colour palettes (scroll down to view it) made by Anuschka Rees. Just take a glance and see if there’s any particular one that includes many of the colours in your “like to wear” pile, and you can get a sense of what other colours might go well with it!
Dive a bit into the Kibbe style types
Although I think the Kibbe style types offer less clear-cut answers than a colour analysis, taking a look at it helped me to further streamline my wardrobe. It outlines several style types, and says that you should repeat the shapes of your body and face in your clothing to make your whole appearance look balanced.
I think you do have to consider how you want to come across, as perfect balance might not make you feel like “you”. I for example don’t like the girly clothes it suggested me to wear. But for me it did explain well why large long vests and wide trousers make me disappear, as my frame is just too narrow and my face just too smallish for it. Same for large clunky jewellery and long hair.
To get started with this in an easy way, you can scroll down on this website to see an overview of the different types + celebrity examples (just for women, sorry), and ask an (objective) friend to tell you what they think represents you best.
Schedule in an appointment with a professional colour / style analyst
You can also go all the way like I did and schedule in an appointment with a professional colour and/or style analyst who will “test” different colours and styles in a controlled (colour-neutral, etc.) environment. This is not cheap, but it can lead to very unexpected insights that can have a major influence on the way you look.
In my experience, what you pay for is what you get. I’d also love to connect you to my sister who’s a professional colour analyst, but she’s now heading out to go backpacking in India for a while ;) You can check out her website here however, she will be back on Dutch soil in May again.
We all have to get dressed in the morning, but it doesn’t need to be a hassle!
I hope I managed to convince you of that, and give you some concrete advice to get started with streamlining your wardrobe and making your wardrobe for you, instead of against you.
It does however require getting out of the “needing to be fashionable” mindset (which especially women are taught to adopt), and paying attention to what actually looks best on you and makes you feel best!
But I think it’s worth it, as there are so many benefits to this.. it saves you money & time, that you can spend on friends and hobbies and work. And it can help us all invest in quality over quantity, buy & throw away less, and in that way decrease the huge impact of the fashion industry on our world and environment..
One last word: I’m working on a one-page (more visual) guide to easily & quickly get started on this, so any feedback you have on how to improve on this is more than welcome :)
