25 Wooden Hangers
I’ve done it before. Once, when i was about 30 lbs heavier than I am now, i took the advice from “What Not To Wear” to heart and purged my closet of anything that didn’t fit. I was cold, and heartless, and incredibly honest with myself. I figured, “If i lose enough weight to be able to wear this again someday, i deserve to buy myself something new.”
Right now, I’m neither fat nor in possession of a wardrobe full of busted clothes. I don’t have a bunch of broken zippers or moth holes, I don’t even have a huge number of items that I don’t wear. At a glance, pretty much everything on my clothes rack has been worn in the last few months. There’s just too many of them. It makes deciding what to wear each morning a pain. Like a menu in a restaurant, too many options paralyzes me with indecision.
So here I am. I am ready to do something about it. That something is 25 Wooden Hangers.
I have a collection of really nice, sturdy wooden hangers scattered through my wardrobe. It’s time to let them shine, to give my clothes the hangers they deserve and clear the clutter of a thoroughly overburdened closet.
The Big Goal: Clear out my closet so all that remains are garments on my 25 wooden hangers
The Fine Print: I have two closets, separated by seasonality. Upstairs, my garment rack is currently filled with dark colors, sweaters, long-sleeves. In other words, clothes fit for cool weather. The downstairs closet has lightweight cottons, sleeveless dresses, and bright colors. I switch the clothes sometime in the Fall and Spring. Each set of warm/cool weather clothes will not exceed the 25 Wooden Hangers.
The Exceptions: I have a tiered skirt hanger that holds 5 skirts, I will be keeping that.
There is a metal tie hanger that I use to hang up my belts and a wooden hanger with holes in it used for storing scarves, i’ll be keeping those as well. Very technically speaking, this project is more like “25 Wooden Hangers plus a few extra things for good measure.”
What This is Not: I’m not trying to bring my entire wardrobe down to 25 pieces. Obviously. I still have a dresser with jeans, t-shirts, workout gear, etc. This is a step on the path towards simplifying and organizing my life.
The Rules:
If I haven’t worn it in the last year, it automatically goes.
If it doesn’t fit, either too small or too large, it goes.
If I question whether it looks good or not, I’ll post a picture on Facebook and let the interwebs decide.
If I want to keep it but it needs repair of some kind (broken zipper, hem, hole), I will fix it immediately and hold its empty hanger until it comes back.
Basically, i’m going by this flowchart of how to Unfuck Your Closet:
Let the games begin.