We are always evolving through education, spiritual practices, travel, and more. Simply acquiring life experience such as becoming a parent or losing a parent continues to shape who we are, re-knitting the fibers of our being. Throughout these different “seasons” as I like to call them, our personal style also evolves, as should our wardrobe. Often times, we hold pieces for sentimental value or because they truly did serve us during another season. Eventually our closet becomes merely a display of past seasons and fond memories rather than a functional tool in our daily routine. That was most certainly true for me up until last year, when I began to learn about the benefits of evaluating my personal style and then organizing my closet accordingly. I worked through a variety of processes, finding my happy balance of materialism and minimalism, so to speak, and then shared my most valuable tips with you all through my first few blog posts (linked below) that became the fundamental vision of EverydayMae.
You can imagine my excitement when friend and authentic-self role model, Brittany Baker of SheCreative, approached me to propose working through these processes with her as a co-written series. Brittany found value in my original posts (happy dance) and wanted to run through them again as she transitioned seasons. We sat down first to assess her current closet; what’s working, what’s not anymore, and how she could mindfully update. Here were her (very observant) thoughts…
“My personal journey to, let’s call it, ‘closet peace’ began when we moved into our home about 4 years ago. Since it is an older home, it has smaller closets and I had too much to stuff into one closet (shared with my husband). The solution he and I came up with was to install a wall-hanging closet system in the smallest extra bedroom. My poor second-born also happens to sleep in this pseudo-closet! Over the last 5 years, I have become very intentional about my shopping habits and I can say that over 90% of my wardrobe has been thrifted or gifted. This alone has made it easier to keep my closet it check.”
“In the last 18 months, I have taken things one step further by developing my personal style statement: I am a practical artist. My personal style reflects the flexible and unique nature of my authentic self. I loved this exercise that Samantha put together! I use it as a challenge to clean out pieces that don’t suite me anymore and as a gauge when bringing new pieces in.”
By pulling out the keys words of her style statement, Brittany can reflect on the purpose her closet serves:
“Practical and flexible — I wear many hats as a creative entrepreneur and work from home mom. No two days look quite the same in my world and I need a wardrobe that works for me, not against me.”
“Artist, unique, authentic — this is where the fun comes in! This is how I want my clothes to make me feel! Texture, layers, and silhouette is where I play. “
We then moved to Brittany’s closet(s) using her style statement to guide sorting and organization, pulling together “uniforms”. She already had a few of her favorite pieces pre-layered for outfit building ease (genius!) so we delved further into tricks like this that would make dressing each morning a cinch.
“I have two closet spaces and the goal is to have ease of dressing come from my small, minimized closet that is in my bedroom. We organized this closet by pre-layering some outfits and then grouped office wear, creative business casual wear, and casual wear. It was fun to see the groupings come together and understand how easy it would be to dress myself on any given day! In the second pseudo-closet, I can house event or season specific pieces and other pieces I love but don’t wear as often.”
“Using my style statement and some feedback from Samantha, I was able to move through another purge and prepare for a Closet Swap with friends.”
As Brittany mentioned, our next step is co-hosting a Closet Swap party to clear some of the clutter and possibly even snap up a few new pieces that will serve her better. We hope you’ll follow along on this little journey of ours, and perhaps take the challenge on yourself! Now is an especially great time to clean up your closet and set intentions for the year 😊
Be sure to follow us on Instagram for the latest in our journey and everyday inspiration:
If you haven’t already, I recommend you read the following posts to get up to speed:
"A SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL YEAR" EMBRACING YOUR PERSONAL STYLE
xoxo— Samantha