Closet Personalities: the Minimalist and the Collector

I’ve been in a lot of closets in my years as a style and wardrobe consultant. And I’ve learned something very important. Not everyone is like me! When I first started working in closets I had one way of doing them and I made everybody follow my way. But over time I realized that there are several different closet personalities. I’ll tell you about a couple of them here.

One of them is the minimalist. The minimalist loves having about ten items in her closet that can be mixed and matched endlessly. I had a client who left for work at about 5 a.m. She’d walk down her hill and catch a bus to San Francisco. She wanted to be able to dress in the dark and know she looked fabulous. What a fun project! We kept to a very narrow color palette and only a few key pieces of jewelry that she could wear every day.

This would totally not satisfy the collector. The collector LOVES expressing herself in clothes and accessories. She’d be sick of the minimalist’s wardrobe in about five minutes. She needs variety. She needs her clothes to entertain her. She loves it when people comment on what she’s wearing…and they do it often! She needs more stuff and more closet space.

Does the collector need to edit her wardrobe even though she loves nearly everything in her closet whether she’s had it for a week or twelve years? Yes, she does. Her body shape may have changed. Her coloring may have changed. And if her clothes aren’t fitting properly and relating to her coloring, she’s going to look dated.

The key thing to remember is that when you’re editing your wardrobe, you need to adjust your expectations based on your closet personality. When you see magazine articles or blog posts that say get rid of everything you haven’t worn in six months, if your closet personality is the collector, this is NOT what you should do. Don’t feel bad that you have more items than other people. It’s how you’re wired!

And if a minimalist hasn’t worn something in six months, it may very likely need to go and be replaced by something else. She uses her clothes a lot. Wear and tear may be more of an issue for her. Her wardrobe may need more maintenance.

What do you think? Are you closer to being a wardrobe minimalist or do you think you might be more like a collector? I’ll share more closet personality types in the future.