New Year, New You: Fashion

With the new year comes the desire to refresh and renew everything, including the clothing in the closet.  But how to objectively look at what is already in there and what needs to be added or removed?  Oftentimes, the same outfits are worn over and over again without thought to mixing them up.

One popular suggestion is to turn all of the hangers around with the hook facing outwards.  As an item is worn and put away, turn the hook around.  Within a certain time frame (three months, six months, one year), it is easy to tell which items are an active part of the wardrobe and which ones are not.

Another method is to actually pull out all of the items in the closet, and sort them into three piles: (1) items that are worn on a regular basis, (2) items that are never worn, and (3) items that could be worn if they were cleaned or repaired.  There can also be a fourth pile, of questionable items.  Those can be stored elsewhere in a dated container to be revisited later.

Once the existing wardrobe has been sorted and reviewed, it is a good time to see what items might be ‘missing’.  A brown blazer?  A pair of black boots?  A tailored grey skirt?  A colorful handbag?  What items could be added to complete the wardrobe?

Do make sure that anything added will coordinate with multiple outfits.  Try not to add anything that will only coordinate with one or two items.  Having items that can interact with multiple existing items helps extend the wardrobe’s usefulness exponentially.

So take a moment at the beginning of this new year and reevaluate the effectiveness of your wardrobe and what you want to do with it this year.