|
Feature article: Get your clothes up to date!
Separation anxiety
The Art of Editing
What to do with a T-shirt #6
|
The Art of Editing.
How do writers create their masterpieces? Unless they're
complete geniuses or complete insomniacs, they don't write 300-page
novels in one sitting! No, they have a few steps:
a) make a rough sketch or outline
b) fill in the essentials
c) add necessary details
d) read it over occasionally
e) edit, cut, trim, add
f) repeat c, d, and e ad infinitum.
Think of your closet as a perpetual work-in-progress. Does that sound
awful? No, LET GO.
Repeat after me: My closet does not have to perfect.
In fact, your closet never will be perfect. That's because you change and
times change. What fits well now may not be quite right 10 pounds
later. What looks so trendy now may look dated in three months, a year, or
five years. So you must edit your closet.
Editing really is an art. It is not something that requires great skill,
but it does take a bit of awareness. With practice, though, it becomes
second nature.
Take your closet today: somewhat of a mess. You know it needs overhaul, so you go through, you sort out stuff to give away or mend. You rehang and refold everything until a few months later you realize you need overhaul again. Ugh!
Instead try a slow overhaul. Try it a little at a time at first, and soon
editing will be so natural you won't even realize you're doing it.
* Start with an overhaul. Must be done. See above.
* Now leave your closet alone. Don't go in until you need something from
there. Stop obsessing about it. Do something fun instead. Go shopping,
ride your bike, watch a movie.
* Come back and set up two bags next to your laundry basket. Make them
different colors. One is going to be your "donations" bag and the other
will be your "mending" bag. Even better, make them small hampers or
baskets and they will stay in your room without looking messy.
* The next time you need to change, go to pick out what to wear. If it's
pajamas at night, flip through your pajama drawer. Do you love everything
there? What needs to go? Take it out and put it in the donations
bag. Something missing a button? Put it in the mending bag. See a
stain you didn't before? Throw it in the laundry.
*Whenever you go through a set of items, just sort whatever you go
through. Don't try to do EVERYTHING in the drawer or ALL the shirts in
your closet (especially if you have a lot of clothes). Instead, just sort
the ones you are flipping through. If you try something on, decide where
it should go before you put it back. Keeping the three bins near your
closet will help you sort quickly with no hassle.
*Going back through the stuff can be tough. Don't even look in your
donations bag. Just tie it up and take it to give away. Do your
laundry. Your mending bag is the toughest. Do simple fixes first (buttons
and hems and some seams coming apart). Real fixer-uppers can be saved for last or when you have a good chunk of time to do it.
*Don't forget adding. Sometimes a piece don't need to be removed as much as it needs something more. That favorite skirt might just need the right top to look good. Make a note to find the right fitted shirt. Adding is as
much a part of editing as subtracting.
*Modifying. Try changing clothes to suit you. That can work for some
items. See this issue's Get your clothes up to date.
*Every time you go in your closet, think to yourself: what is this doing
here? Does it belong? Is it my style? How does it blend with the rest of
the closet? Take just a moment, and you can be the editor trimming away
at your closet.
|