In these past few years, decluttering and minimalism are often the talk of sites and social media. Tonnes of videos are made to teach folks how to declutter the massive amount of clothings that they have.
But how about those who have massive, HUGE collection of clothes that they absolutely love and cannot bear to part with?
Don’t get me wrong, I derive a lot of inspiration from watching YouTube videos and reading blog articles on decluttering and organization. Many YouTubers promote the Kon Mari method. I was so inspired that I actually went to my local bookstore to purchase the book.
However, the objective of this article is to offer some respite for those who just love shopping and purchasing clothings that they love and would wear.
Let me share with you on two of the people who I personally know who absolutely love buying clothes.
Even though it has been so many years, I always remember my Advanced Mathematics teacher who taught me pre university (form 6). She arrived to class each day wearing a different set of clothing.
Every. Single. Day.
Oh well, she did wear a repetitive outfit but not more than 5 times. We have no idea where she bought her clothes because we go shopping too but we do not see them in departmental stores.
We were Science stream students but I love designing hairclips and a friend of mine wanted to be a designer. So we look forward to see her because my friend would get inspiration from the clothes she wear and I, from her hairclips. She wore branded hairclips from Evita Peroni which during those days were considered the ‘Chanel’ of hairclips. Not to mention her custom jewelries that always matched the colour of her dresses.
She taught us for 2 years and she really had that much outfits to be able to wear literally different clothings each school day.
The salary of a teacher was so low that we often wondered how could she afford to buy so much of stuff. One day, during a relaxed informal chat with her, someone mustered up the courage to ask her. She told us that basically, her husband was supporting her financially so she was not working because she needed the money. She worked because she loved to buy clothes so much and she did not want to burden her husband. She used her salary to finance her habit.
Now, if you are like my former teacher…. how would you store the massive amount of clothings that you have?
Getting a bigger room, or moving to a smaller room so that you have use the master bedroom to fit your ever expanding wardrobe is not practical.
Simple way to organize huge and massive amount of clothes that you have
I learned this from a former colleague of mine. She also have a penchant for clothes, even though not as extreme as my former teacher. Still, she has a huge collection of clothes that she loves.
Like my teacher, the reason she worked was also to finance her love for clothes.
Her method:
1. Identify a theme to group your clothings into. It may be by season, such as spring, summar, autumn and winter. My friend grouped her clothings into about 4 categories. Basically it is for her to switch her wardrobe every few months.
2. She kept clothes that she does not wear in huge clear plastic storage boxes (so that easier to see through and identify). The plastic storage boxes are kept in the attic of her home.
3. Each few months or when she felt like it, she would change up the clothings. Or if she suddenly feel like wearing a particular dress which she had not worn for sometime, she would go and look it up in the box.
Her method kept her bedroom cupboard tidy, which she is also sharing with her husband (who have much lesser clothes).
How I kept my own clothes organized
In the past, I’ve splurged and wasted a lot of money on clothes that ‘does not spark joy’ as how Marie Condo would say it. Unlike my teacher and my former colleague who loved their clothes, a lot of my bad choices made me feel unhappy looking at it because the reasons why I bought them were either one or more of the below:
- I had hoped I would be able to fit in it but no, it was not to be. Even though by the time I could fit into it, it ran out of fashion
- From friends who accompanied me for shopping who insisted the attire was suited for me (but ended up I just could not bring myself to wear it because it was totally not my style)
- Impulsive bad choices but I felt reluctant to part with them because they are expensive
One day, I just cleaned out my cupboard and removed all the clothes that reminded me of wasted hard earned money on bad choices. And eventually, I did learn to make better buying decisions, buying clothes in a style, cutting and material that suited me.
I followed my former colleague’s method by putting them in clear boxes and I stored those boxes in my store room to deal with them later. And then I do purge some of the clothings when I am decluttering my storeroom.
Conclusion
Therefore, I find the simple method of storing away in clear storage containers to work for those who have massive amount of clothes. You just need to decide what you need to decide on how you want to group the clothes that you have.
On the other hand, this also worked for those who have a small closet and need to reduce the volume to prevent disorganization and clutter from building up.