Organizing Your Minimalist Capsule Wardrobe, The Life Changing Magic of Hanging ALL THE THINGS!

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Update August 2016 -- I have HUGE news for a fashion-savvy, Capsule Wardrobe lovin' girl like you!  My shiny, awesome new book Secrets of the Capsule Wardrobe:  How to Find Your Personal Style & Create a Happy, Confident Closet! is now available!!  Feel free to continue to read this post if you like, but just be aware you're basically reading an incomplete rough draft... my book is the Perfected Guide to finding your personal style and building a effortless, confidence-inspiring, non-boring capsule wardrobe, step-by-step! It also contains never-before-published information on how to avoid the three most common mistakes that will SABOTAGE your Capsule Wardrobe, how to continue to curate your collection of clothing by purposeful shopping in the future, a whole chapter on the role of accessories in your minimalist closet, and more.  Go check it out right now... a happy closet awaits you! 


Super girly post alert!  Writing today about fa-SHUN... ready to be glamorous and sophisticated with me??  Seventh in a weekly series of ?.  Missed the first six installments?  Click below to catch up.

How to build a minimalist capsule wardrobe without losing your mind!  Step by step towards a happy closet:

Part 1: Finding Your Style!

Part 2: The Winnowing Phase

Part 3: The Drastic Importance of Color Choice in a Capsule Wardrobe

Part 4: Be Adventurous!  Mix-and-Match Fashion Show + Look Book

Part 5: The Real Secret to a Capsule Wardrobe - Balancing Your Bases!
Part 6: How many items belong in your closet? The Minimalist Capsule Wardrobe Question We've Been Avoiding...

Part 7:  Organizing your closet... the life changing magic of hanging ALL THE THINGS!

Wow, looking back over the last six posts, we have truly come so far in the journey towards a functional, simple, HAPPY closet!  If you've been following along, you have developed a minimalist capsule wardrobe that reflects who you are, is unique to you, and makes you feel confident.  It also only contains items that you love, and is easily adaptable and mix-and-matchable.  That is amazing!

Now, an important element in the "functional" part of your wardrobe is how to store and organize your clothing in a way that is easily accessible AND visually appealing.  So let's dive into that!  

There are a lot of blog posts bouncing around on pinterest about how buying a matching set of hangers will transform your closet.  So, I bought a set and tried it out.  Honestly, it really wasn't that revolutionary... still the same clothes, still the same closet.  If you're relying on the "new hangers" trick to totally transform your closet with no other time or effort invested, you're bound to be disappointed.  But since we've already invested a LOT of time and effort into transforming our closets, I have to say that the hangers were a nice touch.  So as you read the below, picture it with a snazzy set of matching hangers into the bargain.  ;P  

It's likely you've already heard of The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up -- a book written by Japanese organizational expert Marie Kondo that is heavily influenced by the philosophies of minimalism.  If you've already done a lot of reading on minimalism and simplicity living, many of the ideas it contains may be familiar to you already, but it still has some fun thoughts and approaches that are more unique to Ms. Kondo.  I'm looking forward to reviewing it more in-depth soon!

Though I enjoyed the book, I strongly disagreed with it on the topic of clothing organization...


Ms Kondo recommends avoiding hanging clothing in the closet in favor of folding everything and tucking it away in dressers.  She even has a system of folding that she describes rather in-depth.  The idea of folding clothing a certain way and then arranging it vertically rather than piling it horizontally isn't new to me; I came across a similar variation on pinterest several years ago and have been using it to arrange my husband's t-shirt drawer ever since.  But the t-shirt drawer is the only place I find it helpful... more and more over the past year or so I have been choosing to hang things instead.  In fact, there are 5 reasons why I choose to hang just about ALL of my clothing, and find there to be a good bit of life-changing magic in that choice as well.  ;)

1.  Hanging your clothing displays your curated collection of clothing, like the "art" it is.  My closet is a happy one, it represents aspects of my personality and makes me feel more confident in my own skin.  This can be true whether your minimalist wardrobe features souvenir t-shirts that represent happy memories to you, or silk blouses and power skirts.  We've worked hard to find our style and hone our collection down until it is full of favorites...  Why would I not want to have my wardrobe on display where I can see it?

2.  Hanging your clothing prevents wrinkles!  Marie Kondo argues that you can fold and arrange your clothing precisely enough to prevent wrinkling, but from my experiences with my husband's t-shirt drawer over the last couple of years, its not quite that simple.  For the folded clothing, arranged vertically, to STAY vertical, you have to keep the drawer at a pretty precise level of "filled."  Otherwise the clothing topples over and wrinkles.  Also, if you pull out an item of clothing too quickly or carelessly, the shirts around it will be dislodged (more wrinkles).  Keeping your clothing folded in this manner, without having them wrinkle, seems like it would require a rather meticulous amount of handling and laundry-maintenance.   

A note on hanging things and laundry-maintenance.... I do not iron.  I do not own an iron.  I do not believe in ironing.  (;P)  I either pull things out of the laundry still-warm and hang them, or hang them to dry in the first place.  This system works great for me, but when something ends up wrinkled (as described above) I basically have to re-wash it.  *shakes head*  Not worth it!    

3.  Hanging your clothing provides concrete limits to your wardrobe!  Based on previous experience, I can say that it is possible to stuff an impressive, almost unending, amount of clothing into a drawer.  There are no clear boundaries to how many things you own when you have a dresser, or dresser and a closet.  

However, when you are choosing to hang your wardrobe, you simply match how many items you want to own with the number of hangers in your closet, and from that point on going forward there is a clear, physical boundary on the extent of your clothing collection.  I purchased a set of 35 matching hangers.  If I buy a new item of clothing, I will clearly have to get rid of an old one, or there won't be a hanger for it.  Hanging things provides simple, visible limits on my wardrobe.

4.   Hanging your clothing provides for simpler wardrobe organization.  No need to paw through piles of fabric in your drawers looking for that certain black shirt and rumpling all the other items around it in the process!  No, everything is easily visible at a glance.  Even if you are folding your clothing with the precision required by Marie Kondo's methods and are able to "see" all your vertically stacked clothing at a glance, you only can "see" a strip of fabric, and I can tell you from experience (my husband's t-shirt drawer has NEVER been so interesting before!  :P) that one black shirt looks a lot like all the others when all you can see is the top fold of the fabric. 

When hanging things, you can not only organize by type (bases together, short sleeve tops together, etc), but by color as well, and that means that all your clothing is literally accessible at a glance.  And that is SO lovely and easy.  

5.  Hanging your clothing makes for effortless mix-and-match!  With dresser + closet, some of your clothing is in one place, and the rest is in the other.  You have to keep in mind the items that are hidden away, as well as the items that are hanging within your closet, whenever you put together an outfit.  We explored how you can create a look-book to make this easier, OR you can just have your fully mixable wardrobe hanging in the closet and reach in and grab a base, grab a top, and presto, you're done!  Lately when I have had the momentary "what to wear?" hesitation, I have literally done just that... closed my eyes, grabbed two pieces, and had an awesome outfit ready to go.  Since nothing is lying buried in a drawer, there's no chance of something awesome lying forgotten and neglected.

So, to summarize, I highly recommend buying a set of hangers and hanging ALL of your clothes, ordering them in your closet by color and type.  Buying a set of hangers isn't mandatory, but it forced me to handle and reconsider every item of clothing in my wardrobe all over again, and provided a really nice concrete boundary on how many items are in my closet.  Currently, I have everything hanging except my workout clothing and my lounge wear/pajamas.  True confessions, there are a few non-matching hangers I've supplemented with, but then I had already told you all that I wasn't quite down to my goal minimalism-wise... I'll get there!!  

If you are going to buy hangers, keep in mind that there are all kinds of wacky and wonderful options these days, including "bump free" designs, multitasking hangers, color options and more... have fun organizing!  :)

Here are some of the places you might see this post partying! 

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