“Let’s get lean” was our chosen motto with Izabella, before we started her wardrobe makeover. Why did we even bother to have a motto, instead of starting the process straight away?
For us, it was important to stay focused on our main objectives, namely to create a closet that works well and reflects Izabella’s life situation at that point of time. A mother of two girls, returning to the corporate work after maternity leave, in Izabella’s case we needed to consider much more than her personal style preferences and most flattering colours.
When I am mentioning to stay focused: I really mean it. We have known each other for a long time – that’s why Izabella accepted the funny challenge to be my diploma client, when I finished my studies at the International Style Coaching Institute. Being friends for ages, we could have easily distracted ourselves – so much to tell, so much to catch up on. But we were strict and made our wardrobe makeover according to the books, besides the fact it happened virtually.
Prior to our decluttering sessions I asked Izabella to check her wardrobe and create 4 piles.
1. To keep: The favourite pieces that she often wore, assuming their sizes still fit and they flattered her colours and body shape.
2. To give away for charity: All the items that she had not been wearing for years, due to change in style, different sizes or simply she lost her appetite for them but the quality is still good.
3. To throw away: Any damaged items that couldn’t do better than recycling.
4. To consider: The trickiest one, pile of doubts where the decision (whether keep, give away or recycle) was not obvious.
We agreed to go through this pile of doubts together virtually, to decide where and how to sort the questionable items.
Decluttering is most of the time a painful process when we are facing a couple of our fears and letting some hopes go, however, we managed a lot and concluded a definitely cleaner wardrobe. I am grateful that we took the time to talk and reflect: recognizing the patterns behind the original cluttering helps us later on to continue with the old habit.
At least to ease the pain of letting some valuable item go, we explored opportunities to donate them for charity or bring them to a second hand shop. After all, they landed at “Kapocs” Community Cloakroom – a small shop that offers high quality second hand pieces for the sake of sustainable fashion. (Kapocs in that context might be translate as “Connect”)
Another benefit of the style coaching: Izabella liked thinking out of the box and tried out new combinations, which she hadn’t even considered beforehand. A real “aha” moment was to realize how beautiful she is in green. This observation and her existing dresses gave me an idea to create two “back to work” capsules, one with green items for Izabella. Those consist of a limited number of elements only and she had most of them in her wardrobe already, so no big investment was needed. Each capsule could be combined more than 30 ways.
Actually, we had a great company for the sessions: Izabella’s younger daughter wanted to try out how to wear a stiletto.
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