How to organise a wardrobe

Once you have successfully decluttered your wardrobe of any items you don’t need or want anymore, you will be left with only the things you do intend to wear. The next step is to organise these items in such a way as to make it easy for you to see what you have, pick out outfits and maintain a tidy wardrobe.

Keep reading to learn how.

How to organise wardrobe space

The first step to any organisation project is to take a step back and assess two things: the quantity of items you need to store, and the space you have in which to do so. When we talk about organising your wardrobe, this doesn’t mean you can’t use other storage facilities as well – think ottomans, drawer units, underbed storage and more. Within your actual wardrobe, you may have a simple single hanging system, or there may be rails, drawers or shelves.

Chances are, you’ll need to use some sort of combination of hangers and drawers if nothing else. Ideally, you want as many of your clothes as possible to be easily visible so that you don’t forget to wear them. The aim of this exercise is to assess the storage you have available to determine whether you can, in fact, have your whole wardrobe stored in such a way, or if you’ll need to have some things out of sight.

If this is the case, don’t despair. Naturally, you’ll want to prioritise the clothing you’re most likely to wear in the coming months. Many people choose to store away their winter clothes, such as hats, gloves, scarves, Christmas jumpers and other knitwear staples, during the summer months. Then, in the winter months, they’ll do the opposite – retrieve their winter warmers and store away the beach outfits and shorts. Of course, some clothes are versatile in that respect, and so they can remain in your main wardrobe all year round.

Top tip! It’s also worth taking stock of your hangers to see if they’re suitable for the clothes you have. More specialised hangers, such as trouser hangers, belt hangers and tie hangers, can make storing certain items easier and more aesthetically pleasing.

How to organise clothes in a wardrobe

Once you’ve planned where your clothes will go, it’s time to come up with a strategy for organising them in your wardrobe space. Many people choose to order their clothes by category, colour, season or formality. We’d recommend a combination of these.

Firstly, organise your clothes into categories based on the type of clothing. You might choose to do this broadly, in the sense of tops versus bottoms, or more specifically, creating groups of long-sleeved shirts, T-shirts, trousers, skirts and shorts, for example.

Within those categories, you should then try to organise your clothes by formality. This means separating your formal trousers from your jeans, your tops from your button-up shirts and your evening gowns from your beach dresses. Finally, order your items by colour. This way, you should be able to go to your wardrobe and find, for example, a smart white blouse in a matter of moments.

How to organise shoes in a wardrobe

Unfortunately, some things are not so easily hung up or folded away. Shoes, hats and bags are common culprits, and this can often mean they end up left in a heap that not only makes it harder to find what you’re looking for but can also lead to the items being damaged or broken accidentally.

Ideally, you should keep your footwear either in a dedicated shoe rack or on the floor of your wardrobe. By having them low down, you can easily hold up the rest of an outfit to see which pair goes best with it. If you choose to keep them on the floor of your wardrobe, it’s a good idea to keep them in shoe boxes to protect them while they’re stored away. This can make it harder to see what you have though, so consider attaching a photograph of the shoes to the front of each box so you can easily see what’s inside.

As for hats and handbags, shelves are your friends. You might even be able to get a hanger that allows you to hang several hats or bags on the wall or door of your wardrobe. If you’ve no shelf space available, another option would be to store items on top of the wardrobe – but you might prefer to keep them in storage boxes if you do this to avoid them getting dusty.

How to keep your wardrobe organised

Getting your wardrobe neat and tidy is one thing but keeping it that way is quite another. However, it’s the only way to reap the benefits of taking the time to organise your wardrobe. So how can you do it?

One of the most important things you can do to simplify keeping your wardrobe organised is to remove anything that could prevent you from putting things away in their rightful place. For example, if you have to move a stack of hats every time you want to reach a handbag, the chances are you’ll be tempted to leave your handbag out and let it clutter your room instead.

Of course, you don’t have to make it so that every single item is within easy reach. When it comes to lesser used items, or items that have a very specific purpose that means they’re not always relevant, feel free to put more commonly used items in front of them. It’s all about having your most-used items close to hand for ease of access.

It’s also a good idea to regularly assess and declutter your wardrobe. As time goes on, you may break older items, fall out of love with them or buy new ones, so it’s important to keep checking to make sure everything in your wardrobe is supposed to be there. The fewer items you have, the easier it will be to keep tidy, so make sure there’s nothing extraneous lurking in your wardrobe.