The new standard: Fabulousness!...
Piles of clothes, ready to be evaluated
My clients these days are fiends for getting rid of the clutter, and I am thrilled to encourage and support them.
Recently I started working with a lovely client — call her Deb. She’s made several big changes in her life, and now wants to have only things in her fairly small closet that are, she told me, fabulous.
That’s a high bar to set. How much of what’s in your closet is really fabulous? (I can say that most of the stuff in my closet really isn’t — either in and of itself or in how it makes me look.)
During our first appointment, she had removed everything from her closet that we hadn’t assessed and made outfits with. Everything — shoes, bags, belts, everything. When I arrived for our appointment, everything else was lying on her bed in piles, jackets here, tops there, and so on.
We spent the next two and a half hours trying on each and every piece. We didn’t make outfits, we just kept going through and assessing the items — and getting rid of most of them. Several times along the way, either she or I had to remind ourselves: “Sure, this piece is okay — but is it fabulous?” If not, out if went.
(She also took the time to do something most clients don’t do — take a picture of every piece. She’ll then have a look book of all her clothes. Normally I take picture of outfits once they are complete, but this extra step, plus putting them in a small binder, means she can easily and quickly look through her closet even if she’s lying in bed or waiting to pick up her kids at soccer practice.)
The pile of discards, ready to be given to a friend
We had a few minutes at the end of our appointment, so we quickly made 10 or 15 outfits with the two remaining pair of pants and the handful of tops — “the fun part,” she told me.
After I left, she was planning to put them back into her closet, arranged by garment type and color, on the new matching hangers she’d bought. She’s thrilled with her newly streamlined closet (the inside of which is painted pink, by the way). She’s a busy working mom who’s also in school and she has no time to stress out about looking great. Now she can get up and get dressed easily in the morning and get on with the rest of her day. Love that.
The client’s pretty bed without piles of clothes.
Here’s what she wrote me the next day: “I had fun yesterday…thank YOU!!! I delivered those two heaping bags of clothes to my friend and she was ecstatic. This morning I unloaded my new tennis shoes and my spring bag to another friend. It feels sooo great to shed and I couldn’t have done it without YOU … so thanks again!”
Thank YOU, Deb!
