garter girl style: how to edit your closet (part 1)

this is the first of my new series: garter girl style. (it is kind of long, but read through it and i promise you will find some valuable free advice.) if you remember from last week, my friend, kelly, is co-posting with me on fridays about style, being stylish, making style work for you, my style revolution and every other form of the word “style” that i can think of.

first up is: how to edit your closet, using me as the example. although, i didn’t know when i started this blog how forthcoming i was going to be about my personal life. but, i guess after these pictures of my kid, modesty went right out the window. so, here goes nothing!

i’m in plain font and kelly is in bold. when we left off, kelly, the style queen, had just entered my life (for the record, we met here, of all places)…

juli told me she was having a hard time getting dressed day to day.  she either spent too much time deciding what to wear or threw something on that left her feeling less than special. as a new mom, she wanted to feel comfortable, but look chic and stylish – without looking overworked. i asked her to let me see her closet.

do you know how hard it is to open your closet to someone?? i didn’t think it was a big deal, until she actually came over and i was, at times, seriously embarrassed to show her certain things. which brings up a good point, if you are embarrassed to show a friend, do you really think you are going to wear those items out of the house? get rid of ‘em!

the first time juli let me into her closet i was shocked. she was making the same mistakes that a lot of women make: she had way too many pieces. many did not fit, she had multiples of items, she had clothes with tags still attached. (true!) these are mistakes that we all make. but, this was not what shocked me. i was shocked that the same person decided to buy all these clothes, to place them on a hanger and let them own a space in her life.

it was as if juli had multiple personality disorder: next to a stuffy suit, hung wide tartan plaid pants. next to those pants hung a sparkly beaded top from the junior’s department. (true!) every trend for the last 15 years made an appearance. it made no sense, there was no rhyme or reason. the same person could not wear all of these clothes. i had to talk to her about why these clothes were in her everyday closet.

once we had this brutally honest conversation, piece by piece we both started to get a picture of what her closet should look like. we were making progress in helping her to achieve her style goals and we could start the enormous process of editing her closet.

yes, i have style goals! when she says enormous, she means enormous. it was insane. hours, upon hours going through each item. but, she took me from two stuffed closets down to one very well-organized closet that contains everything i love.

is any of this ringing true with you? do you feel like i’m looking at your closet too? fear not. from my experience with juli’s closet, here are some of the most important things to consider as you begin the process of editing your closet…

oh. oh. oh! it was waaay too much to put into one post, guess you’ll have to check back this afternoon for the tips…

click here for part 2 of this post!