How to Decide Which Clothes to Keep, and Other Fashion Questions Answered

I’ve had a few fashion-related questions submitted through the ‘Ask Me Anything‘ form in the sidebar lately, so I figured I’d put them all together into one post: and here it is!

Raquel asked:

Hi Amber! I have an intriguing question… You have your shoes beautifully organized in your walk-in-closet (that I absolutely love btw), but there are no empty spaces..! Where do you put or how do you find space for your new purchases? I’ll patiently wait for your answer 🙂

You know, I don’t actually buy new shoes all that often these days – or not nearly as often as I used to, anyway! I am still going through a bit of an obsession with Office lately, and a few pairs of their ‘On to Point‘ pumps have found their way onto the shoe shelves, but, other than that, I think I’ve switched my obsession from shoes to handbags – whoops! When I do buy new shoes, though, I actually have a bit of extra storage in this room, in the shape of this low shelf, which runs all the way along the wall opposite the shoe shelves, and underneath the clothing rails:

I mostly use these shelves for flats and boots, as you can see, but they’re fairly deep shoes, which hold a full row of shoes behind the ones you can see at the front (and I could squeeze in more if I wanted to), so they hold quite a lot of shoes, if I need them to. When I buy a new pair, I’ll normally want to put them on the shelves, where I can see them, so I’ll switch them with an existing pair I’m not really wearing all that often, which will then either go onto these floor-level shelves, or into the bin/donate pile, if I decide I’m probably not going to wear them again. Speaking of which, Maria asked…

 

Hello! I wanted to ask you what are your criteria for decluttering old but still in good shape clothes. Lately I’ve been reviewing my closet and have started to cull some things, but it’s very difficult to choose what goes and what will go in my metaphorical attic (the highest shelf of my wardrobe), waiting to be worn again. I’ve found that some items I haven’t worn in years have caught my attention anew, and I’m wearing them again with joy. But now I’m left with a huge question: how to recognise items that I will love again in the future?

 

So, I did a post last year on how I clear out my closet, and talked a little bit there about how I decide what to keep and what to ditch, but honestly? It mostly comes down to instinct. I hesitate to call it the ‘spark of joy‘ technique, because I have plenty of clothes (mostly basics like jeans, t-shirts etc), which don’t exactly spark “joy” in me, but which I wear all the time, and wouldn’t want to throw away. I also, however, have some items which have the opposite effect of the “spark of joy” – so I’ll pick them up, and even although I like the look of them, and think they’re objectively useful items to have, I’ll just get this feeling of, “Yeah, I don’t want to wear this, no matter how ‘perfect’ it is on paper.” Those are the items I get rid of.  I’m not a fan of any of the time-based rules people come up with (I.e. ‘If you haven’t worn it in a year, you should throw it out!” etc), and I have to admit that there are quite a few items in my closet which hardly ever get worn, because I just don’t have the opportunity to wear them all. Going by most of the ‘style magazine’ rules, I should get rid of all of those clothes, and only keep the things I wear all the time, but I don’t, because I love them – and it would make me sad to lose them.

I should add here, though, that this technique isn’t failsafe, and there have been plenty of times when I’ve gotten rid of something, only to regret it a week later (ALWAYS a week later. WHY?), so, if I’m not sure about something I’m thinking of tossing, I have a spare linen basket in my bedroom closet which I toss it all into. I go through the basket maybe once or twice a year, and if I haven’t thought about the items I find in it – or gone and fished them back out again – then I take that as a sign that, yeah, I really CAN live without it. (And then, of course, the week after THAT, I’ll realise that, actually, no I can’t – LOLS.)

I feel like this answer was no help at all. Sorry about that.

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