Pollyanna Rainbow Sunshine and the Needles of Doom

Lyda here.  

Ya’ll, go check out Teeny Project Runway over at Mason-Dixon Knitting. Hilarious! How to choose just one of these entries to vote for?!

Let these fashion designs inspire your own wardrobe choices. Be fabulous!

Pollyanna West’s Guide to a Fabulous Wardrobe

Part One: Cull the Herd

This is my favorite part. Bwahahaha.

Hard-core Attack:

• Set aside a day for this. Before the big day, do the laundry and put the clothes away. Hey, I said it was hard-core.
• Invite a friend or two over to help. They should have great taste, a good sense of humor, and kindness.
• A full length mirror will help, but isn’t essential. A camera is optional.
• Be sure you have lots of chocolate, caffeine and alcohol on hand. Ya’ll will need your strength. Stock up on some comedy DVDs to watch after the work.
• On the day, make the bed. Drag your friends into the bedroom (or wherever the clothes are).
• Put three big bags on the floor, one for Mend, one for Donate, one for Toss. Paper shopping bags are good, because they stand up on their own. Plastic trash sacks work fine too. You may need extra bags as you go.
• Pull all of your clothes out of the closet and pile them on the bed. Remove any cats first.
• Evaluate each item:
  • Do you love it?
  • Does it fit?
  • Does it flatter you?
  • Does it fit your life? There is no point in keeping a blouse that must be ironed if you will never iron it. No matter how beautiful it is. Ditto clothes that need to be dry cleaned if you won’t do it. Which is why I personally have no clothes that require ironing or dry cleaning.
  • Is it in good shape?
• If the answer is no to any of ONE of these questions, it goes in Donate (if it is in good shape) or Toss. I warned you. Hard. Core.
• Make a list of what needs replacing as you go.
• If the answer is yes, and
  • It needs professional attention (dry cleaning, alteration, repair), make a separate bag for that.
  • It needs a button sewn on or the hem mended, it goes in Mend.
  • It is fine as is, put it back in the closet.
• In order to evaluate them, most items will have to be tried on. I know. This is why your friends are with you. Be strong. Have a glass of wine. Have some chocolate. Have some more wine. Breathe. Make your friends tell you how pretty you are.
• When in doubt about whether to keep something, trust your friends.
• Your friends are allowed to plunder the Donate pile at will. Even though it makes you look like a frog, maybe that shade of green will look great on one of them. Or their mom.
• You may put a very few items in a Maybe pile. But only a few.
• When you have been through the whole pile on the bed, you will have only the clothes you love and will wear in your closet.
• You will also have a list of things you need to replace.
• Go through the Maybe pile again, moving things into the other categories. If you still aren’t sure, there’s probably something wrong with it – maybe the fabric itches, or the color isn’t right for you. Maybe you think you should like it, but probably you don’t. Maybe you just feel meh about it. Life is too short to wear meh clothes. Unless you have to for work – if you deliver for UPS, you have to wear the brown.
• If you still have a (small!) pile of Maybes, put them in a bag and put it away somewhere out of sight – like the garage or another room. If you need or want one of these items, you will dig it out. Whatever’s still in the bag in two months gets donated (unless one of the special notes below applies). Again: Hard. Core.
• Optional: As you try on the great clothes, create new outfits. Maybe you always wear that sweater with that skirt because you bought them together, but it also looks fabulous with those slacks. Have a friend take a picture so you remember what looks good together. Try on different shoes with the outfits too. You have your friends there for their advice on all this, and for fun. Play with your clothes!
• Take the Toss bag(s) out to the trash. No, no waiting until the morning. Do it now. She thunders imperiously.
• Load the Donate bag(s) into the car. All of them. So let it be written, so let it be done.
• Load anything that needs to be dry-cleaned or professionally repaired into the car.
• The point is to get this stuff out of your house right away. If it sits around, it might creep back into the closet.
• If it’s not too late (and you have a sober person to drive), go on a road trip to drop off the Donations and dry-cleaning. Pick up some food and head back to your place for fun movies and dinner. And more wine.
• Better yet, order delivery and put in a movie. You can drop off the donations and dry cleaning tomorrow. See, I am not completely heartless.
• Now you owe your friends the same day of fun with their wardrobes. Hey, it’s a lot easier to do this for someone else.

If you have a really big wardrobe, it might take more than one day. However, I have done this for several friends, and even though one time we completely filled one friend’s truck with bags of clothes to donate, we finished in one day.

That’s right. The whole back of her truck. Filled with bags of clothes.

I am merciless.

Yes, I will come to your house. Yes, there will be a fee. Chocolate will only be the beginning. Bwahahaha!

Soft Core (heh, I said “soft core”) Approach:

• For one month, keep three bags in the closet or near it, for Donate, Toss, and Mend. Add a bag for Dry Clean / Professionally Alter or Repair if you need it.
• As you go through the month, put a few things in the bags as you have a few minutes, or as you change clothes.
• Just before you do laundry, look at what is left in your closet. Why haven’t you worn those clothes? Can some of them go in the bags?
• Tape up a piece of paper, and make notes on what you need to replace.
• If a bag gets full, take it out of the closet and put an empty one in its place. If it’s a Toss or Dry Clean bag – well, you know what to do.
• At the end of the month, take all the Donate bags to a charity.
• You can repeat this periodically, or just keep it going all the time.

Eventually, the unloved, the ugly, the poorly fitting clothes will all be gone. You will have a usable wardrobe and a cleaner closet.

Notes: 

Donate only usable items. They should also be clean. It is not acceptable to wear a shirt all day and then put it in the the Donate bag. It is also okay to give things to your friends, relatives, whoever – if they really want them. If they don’t it will just become part of their closet clutter.

You can do the same process for the clothes in your dresser. Whether or not you want your friends there while you go through your lingerie is up to you.

If you have a lot of clothes in multiple closets, you can approach it one closet at a time. If you have different wardrobes for different aspects of your life, you can do one at a time. Hmm, today I’ll go through my cat burglar outfits, and tomorrow the Leader of Industry power suits.

Seasonal clothes:

If you live somewhere that necessitates a winter wardrobe and a summer wardrobe, then you can do the Hard-Core Attack twice - once for each season. Maybe when you are moving the clothes to prepare for the new season. Be sure to make a list of what to replace. You might find needed items at end-of-season sales, but if not, you will have a list to work with when it gets cold or hot again.

As an adult, I have never lived anywhere with seasonal extremes, so I’ve never had to do this. I’m not sure why I’m mentioning this. Except maybe to say nanee-nanee-boo-boo.

Special Occasion clothes:

There are clothes that we don’t wear often, yet we want and need. Renaissance Faire outfits. Ritual wear. Costumes. Formal wear. One tasteful modest dress for dress-up work functions, the readings of Wills, and tea with the Queen. As opposed to the trashy trolling-for-guys dresses that one wears all the time. Ya’ll know.

You can include pregnancy clothes in this category, if you think you’ll use them again. And again I say, nanee nanee.

You can of course keep these items. Just move them to the back of the closet or a dresser drawer, or even a closet somewhere else in the house.

Sentimental clothes:

Far be it from me to tell you to get rid of your old Brownie outfit, or the dress you wore in your high school production of “Annie Get Your Gun,” or your collection of bridesmaid dresses. I personally still have the Spanish dancing skirt from my high school dancing group. Keep them, love them, enjoy them. Just not in the closet where your wardrobe lives.

Remember how groggy you are some mornings? Or maybe all mornings?

You do not want to accidentally wear that Brownie outfit to work one day. On purpose would be different. And send me pictures.

I’m just saying.

“It will be fabulous once I…” clothes:

We all have them. The jeans you will be able to get into when you lose or gain five pounds (or ten or twenty…). The dress that will look awesome when your new workout routine pays off. The sweater that you can wear when you go blond. Okay, we don’t all have that last one, but you know what I mean.

This is a hard one. If you truly love these clothes and know they will look fabulous on you at some later date - then keep them. But not with your daily clothes. Put them in the bottom drawer of a dresser or in another closet. If you have to keep them in your closet, put them in a box on the shelf, or at the back. 

When you open your closet, you will now only see clothes you like. Clothes that you can wear right now. Clothes that work for you.

A cluttered crowed closet is just discouraging. You might refuse to get dressed and climb back into bed. While appealing in the short term, this could lead to problems in the long term.

Even Ladies of Negotiable Affection have to get out of bed sometimes.

It’s worth it to clean out your closet. Really. I will actually come and help you. I can be bought. Heh heh. You will be able to dress quicker, and feel good about everything you own.

Next time: Shopping for Clothes.

Scary, kids!