Wardrobe by Christmas, Chapter One — The Shirts
How cataloguing my shirts made the wardrobe more chaotic before it made anything easier.
· 7 min read · Tania Cottew
Chapter One — The shirts I did not choose the shirts first because I had a grand plan. I chose them because they were becoming impossible to work with. I had lots of shirts coming out of the wash. I was taking photographs of them and trying to catalogue them, but the cataloguing was making the physical wardrobe more and more frustrating. I would take a shirt from the back, photograph it, sometimes put it on, and then put it at the front. Then I would do the same thing again. Before long, the section was a real mess. Eventually I thought, I have got to sort this out.
The first useful decision was to stop treating every shirt as one enormous group. I like my clothes organised under season, and I also need delicate things to be treated kindly. Silk, linen and other things that need ironing do not want to be scrunched up in a drawer. That section is not only shirts either. There are tops that need ironing, delicate knits, and a couple of long-sleeved cashmere polo-style jerseys that belong with them because they need the same sort of care. So I made the main groups silk, short-sleeved and sleeveless, and long-sleeved. The silk pieces could be together, and the sleeve groups could work as practical seasonal choices. That matters in Auckland, where we can have four seasons in one day. If it is warm, I can look at the short sleeves. If the temperature drops, I can look at the long sleeves. It is a small thing, but it makes choosing easier because I am starting with the weather I actually have.
Then I arranged each group by colour. I saw a wardrobe styling programme on television years ago where they reorganised everybody’s clothes by colour, and I thought it was a great concept. With so many colours in my wardrobe, I was always wondering, where has my green dress gone? Where is the pink one? Where is the purple one? When things are arranged by colour, I can see what I have and locate it quickly. It also makes the Elemi suggestions findable. If Elemi says, what about that one, I can go, yes, I know exactly where it is. I do not have to begin another search through the rail.
Colour order is not about making the wardrobe look worthy of a photograph. It is about making the things I own easier to find.
It took nearly five hours. That sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud. I thought it would take about an hour. But I am recovering from a fractured rib. Even though the shirts were on a low rail, lifting them off, carrying them out to the bed, laying them down, sorting them into colours and colour groups, then carrying them back and hanging them up again was a lot. There was no photography included in that five hours. It was simply moving and sorting clothes while recovering from a fractured rib.
And then there was the bed. After about an hour my back was killing me and I wanted to stop. But I could not leave the bed covered in shirts. I was going to sleep that night, and there was nowhere else to put the mixture back on the rail. So I had to keep going and get it done. That was not the most elegant motivation, but it was a very real one.
I did not find piles of unwanted duplicates. I do not tend to buy pieces I would not wear, so there were not lots of shirts that suddenly felt like mistakes. There are a few pieces that are a little on the small side for me at the moment, which means I have gaps in some colours and sizes that fit me now. But I am not going out to buy something new to fill every gap. I can choose a different top that I already own, and keep those pieces for when they fit me again. The wardrobe does not need to be corrected before I am allowed to use it. I can work with what is available today.
The lovely surprise was finding a shirt I had not worn for ages. It had been hidden in the pile, and once the shirts were easier to track down, I wore it again. I have also worn a couple of things as the weather has started to get a little warmer. That has been really, really cool.
Afterwards, it looked so much better compared with the chaos that had been in the wardrobe. I can walk in there and think, yes, that looks really neat. I know where the short sleeves are, where the long sleeves are, and where the colours are. It feels fantastic.
And the best part was not the neatness on its own. It was the joy and accomplishment of getting it done. It was about 11pm, and I thought, yes, I am ready to go to sleep now. That is the feeling I want to remember: not a perfect wardrobe, not a new wardrobe, just the quiet happiness of making the wardrobe I have easier to live with.