Wardrobe 101: Separating by Seasons

Welcome to Wardrobe 101, a series of blog posts that will give you step by step tips and tricks that works for everyday life. You are about to read my first blog post, which is to teach you how to separate your clothes by season.

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This game-changer is a quick, great inexpensive way to improve your wardrobe situation.

Living in Manitoba, we have distinct seasons. My wardrobe needs to be functional for a snow blizzard, rain storm, extreme heat and everything else in between.

The first trick: is during spring and summer, you don't need your chunky knits and boots. Then in fall and winter, you aren't going to need your shorts and sandals. This is why organizing your closet seasonally is genius!

Growing up, I never had the luxury of having a bedroom closet. It has always been a big dream of mine to have a room dedicated as my dressing room because of this.

Since moving into my house six years ago, I made my own closet using a small space that I had. It worked great for a few years but I soon realized I was forgetting to wear a lot of the clothing that was hung towards the top... being a petite young woman, I found it complicated to take things down or hang them back up. As well since the space was quite small, I was beginning to overtake the linen hall closet and the basement with two additional wardrobes.

During covid, I kept quite busy with landscaping my front yard. But since fall and winter are now here, I've decided to begin working on some projects indoors. The biggest challenge I needed to fix was my little closet space, how I was going to be able to store all my clothes into my room and free up the space in the linen hall closet and basement.

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To begin, think of your favourite clothing store! How it makes you feel seeing the clothing you may haven't seen for 6 - 9 months and more importantly how they only display clothing that are in the current season. Your closet will instantly feel fresh and new each time you pull out the upcoming season's clothing.

Time to begin!

Now it's time to walk you through the step by step process. It may take a couple hours, get a little messy and be overwhelming at first. Although in the end, I'm sure your closet will be more manageable. Then you'll be ready for the next post!

Start by removing everything out of your closet and clean out all the dust bunnies.

Goal: is to create a Warm Weather Wardrobe for the months of April - September and a Cold Weather Wardrobe for the months of October - March. Keep in mind there are also going to be basics that will be kept in your closet all year round.

Make sure you keep a good number of basics that are going to work for you all year round and help form a foundation to your wardrobe. Although if you live where there are drastic weather changes, then you will need some clothes that are particular for hot and cold weather.

Create a first pile for all fall and winter pieces of clothing.

Create a second pile for all spring and summer pieces.

Finally, create a third pile for all your basics that you'll be able to wear all year round.

I myself found it useful to add a forth pile which contained all my fancy tops, blazers, skirts and dress pants.

But also a fifth pile which contains all my special occasion dresses. (These dresses don't fall into just the Warm or Cold category)

NOTE: we are not editing any of your clothes yet, the main goal is to simply put all your clothes into these three main categories.

Take a look at those piles and everything that you have.

• Chances are the winter pile is larger than the summer pile, this is common seeing as you need more layers in the winter and the clothes tend to take up more room with the thickness.

• Are there any duplicates? Any season that you buy more clothes for?

• Notice how many basics you have that can be used yearly

• Look at each pile to see if the colors work well for those seasons, they suit you or if certain pieces don't work with anything else.

Since the colder weather is here, its time to store your warm weather clothing collection.

Here are some storage ideas:

- in an under bed bin

- on the very top shelf of your closet

- an empty dresser

- or in another room

For myself, I chose the place I previously had as my closet to store all my out of season clothing (in this case the Warm) and special occasion dresses.

But also any additional coats/jackets, scarves, hats and gloves I have for Cold season. ( Since these things are still in season currently, yes I have them tucked away but they are also accessible.)

EXTRA: since summer has ended, you now have an idea on what clothing worked and didn't. If there is anything that didn't work out, stained or worn out, put them aside to donate or sell. If you have any gaps in your summer wardrobe, now is a great time to buy because everything is on sale.

Now its time for the fun part! Time to hang up your winter collection. I like to organize my clothing by type, color and sleeve length. For optimal space I like to use thin hangers from JYSK, they allow you to be able to store more clothing in a small space. Although for coats, I like to use thick wooden hangers from Ikea that helps make it look like a boutique.

Once organized, I make sure everything in hung up with the hanger facing backwards, once I wear a piece and it's been laundered, I hang it back up regularly.

This little trick helps me to keep track of what things I wear and what I don't. Also at the end of the season it makes things easier to know which clothes I haven't worn, so its time to either donate or sell.

If some of those clothes fall into the idk category, even though you haven't worn them all season, try them on!

Trying them on...

I ask myself:

• Why haven't I worn it all season?

• Do I still love it?

• Does it look good on me?

If I don't have a good reason to get rid of it, then I keep it for the next time the season rolls around.

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Congratulations! Your finished and I would love to hear how things went!

XOXO SGR!