Into the Closet with Megan

It’s not the New Year but September feels like a new beginning for many of us and along with that comes the desire to start the year off with a clean slate… or at least, an organized closet!  I know I have that desire and am Konmari-ing my closet this month (full expose coming soon!), and my favourite Megan invited me over to hang out with her in the closet this weekend.  (During the day, we presented on getting out of the closet – the therapy closet – and by 8pm we were back in the closet. Ha!)  Megan was due for a closet edit, but like many of us, found the task too daunting to tackle alone!

We have supported each other in the past through closet edits and shopping and drinking wine, but this time, we added the Konmari element.  Megan has not read the book, so I simply encouraged her to ask herself…

Like many of us, Megan has several pieces in her closet that don’t necessarily spark joy but remain functional.  Sorel boots anyone??  Nonetheless, we plowed through her closet and vowed to put those pieces aside and revisit them at the end with an interesting result… read on!

We followed the Konmari-recommended order and started with tops, however, to make the task more manageable, we subdivided into tanks, short sleeves, long sleeves, sweaters and blazers.  First we tackled tank tops.  Megan, like many of us, likes to wear tank tops as a smoothing layering piece and so she has 4000 of them.  She had been hanging onto ill-fitting worn out pilly tanks for years…until now!

Megan’s favourite pieces, like the mustard cardi, are simply showing their age and it’s time they were replaced.  So Megan, your homework is to thrift (or buy but NOT FROM FAST FASHION) staple cardis in mustard, black and navy.  Meanwhile, don’t you have a Tori Burch coral cardi kicking around?  Poor you, I think you’ll survive in the interim.  😉  We edited out a bunch of ill-fitting pieces – remember, fit needs to spark joy too or you’ll end up like Peter Pan – and refolded everything Konmari-style…

Megan used a couple baskets then went and got a couple more in pleasing colours!

Megan discarded a couple maxi dresses that just happened to spark joy in someone nearby…

We also went through shorts, skirts and pants, keeping a few pairs of inspiration jeans and discarding anything worn or ill-fitting.  It may still look like a full closet but…

Megan ended up with five large bags of donations and another bag of garbage.  That was ALL in her closet.  Once you do the purge, it’s hard to imagine how everything ever fit!  And guess what?  In the end, there was nothing in the “doesn’t spark joy but still functional” pile!  By discarding the things that didn’t spark joy, Megan will give the pieces she loves more wear time, and if she finds herself wanting, she can always replace those items with something she does love!

It was fun, Megan, and you did a great job EVEN though you insisted on keeping two old ginormous sweatshirts.  That’s it, right?  RIGHT?!!