Shop Your Closet

I have nothing to wear. All over the city, you can hear this collective expression of wardrobe frustration. Yet, the closets in question are hardly empty. Instead, they are stuffed full of designer clothes, sample sale buys and vintage treasures. So full in fact, that finding anything is next to impossible.

With all of the cocktail parties, black ties and family gatherings coming up, we turned to Melanie Charlton Fascitelli of Clos-ette, a design firm specializing in closets and dressing rooms, to give us some advice on managing our wardrobe mess.

Taken from the pages of her upcoming book, Shop Your Closet - The Ultimate Guide to Organizing Your Closet in Style, here’s what the stylist and organizational guru had to share with us:

Clear the clutter. Get rid of what you don’t wear (because it’s too small, too big, out of style or damaged). Consign the good stuff and donate the rest to charity. Clutter takes up valuable space in your closet.

Edit your wardrobe. Take a detailed inventory of your clothing and accessories by type and color. Only then will you understand your dressing style and your shopping needs.

Merchandise your closet. Color-code and categorize your clothes so they will be easier to find. If your closet looks like a retail store or showroom, you’ll be excited to go “shopping” in it. (see photo above for example of Melanie’s work)

Go shopping. This is a reward for all your hard work. Now that you know what you have, you can build on your existing wardrobe instead of just adding to the clutter.

For serious shopaholics and pack rats, you can always turn to the experts to help you purge. Melanie and her team are available for consultations ($250/hour) or a full day of “wardrobe clarification” which may include cleaning, editing and shopping ($3000/6 hr day). You should know that shopping with Melanie means VIP treatment at many of the luxury houses and cool, new designer showrooms.

If it sounds like a big investment of your time or money, think again. We consider it a small price to pay to discover the fantastic wardrobe you never knew you already had.

To find out more about Clos-ette and their custom closet and cabinet design work, visit www.clos-ette.com.

To pre-order a copy of Shop Your Closet, click here.

PHOTO CREDIT: Portrait photo by Sasha Nialla. Closet photo by Wendell T. Webber for Instyle Magazine