Clean-Out - Laura Cattano

Be fore
Af t e r
Closet
Clean-Out
It’s spring-cleaning season!
Executive editor Joyce Chang confronts
her closet chaos (finally).
I
216
Cosmopolitan | April 2013
hook up
You can never have
too many hooks!
I’ve been using
these to hang
scarves, guests’
coats, even outfits
I’ve planned if I
have a special
event or big day.
let there be
light
Things get lost in
the dark. Small
lamps cast a warm
dressing-room
glow to my new
Sex and the City
accessories nook.
Lampadina
by Achille
Castiglioni,
$145,
flosusa.com
For more expert tips on how you can get organized, go to Cosmopolitan.com.
jessica antola. Left, Bottom: LYNN RASIC.
’ve never met a closet capable
se
of containing all my clothes.
ow t h e e d
l
l
o
F
Doors have never shut;
arn
t ips I leom
drawers never closed. In my
fr
bedroom, I’ve always kept a
ze r
large chair buried under
o r ga n i a
clothes. One boyfriend generously
La u r .
o
likened it to a modern-art
C at t a n
installation. Some saw it differently.
One guy walked into my bedroom for
the first time and exclaimed, “Oh my
god, you’ve been robbed!”
I had heard of companies that
When you live in chaos, you
trick out basic closets into Pinterestattract more chaos. And in college,
worthy feats of organization. I had
chaos was fun—crazy nights out,
dismissed it as the kind of thing
can-you-believe-what-happened
annoying, OCD people did. In reality,
days. But a few years ago, when I
I was overwhelmed, kind of cheap,
landed my dream job and everything
and embarrassed. But I had hit a
else in my life seemed to fit into place,
wall, fighting with my stuff in the
my mess stopped being a funny quirk
mornings, losing things in my own
and began to be my secret
home. I called Carolyn Musher, a
shame. I no longer had
design consultant for
time to rummage around
California Closets. And
for a missing shoe. I felt
the first thing she said,
like my mother,
to my relief was “It’s not
exasperated by a pile of
your fault.”
coats on the floor. And I
Like many city
was mad at myself—I
dwellers, I suffered from
had mastered so many
a lack of closet space. I
my
Me and
difficult things and yet I
only
had two closets for
closet
genuinely sucked at hanging
everything I owned. Carolyn
up my clothes. It was time for my
designed a wardrobe that would
closet to grow up.
replace my chair “storage unit” and
shop your
closet
Get excited to
get dressed!
Create storage
that looks like
it could be a
store display.
Group like
with like
Designate bins
to contain
beachy items,
ski stuff, and
keepsakes.
color
coordinate
A quick way to feel
pulled together is
to stack sweaters,
tees, towels, and
linens by color. It
looks so polished
and chic!
the crow n je w el
For m e, it’s n ot th
e
je welry it se lf—it’s
m y je welry drawer!
Lookin g at it
m ak es m e h appy.
get
motivated
1 It will save you time.
Getting dressed in the
morning is so much faster
when you can actually
see your clothes.
2 You can make money!
Sell your stuff on sites like
Dresm.com, Threadflip.com,
and Vaunte.com. With all
your extra space, you can
shop for “new” items on the
sites as well.
3 You’ll help someone
else. Donate your old linens
to the local vet instead of
tossing. For old clothes, click
on DonationTown.com to
arrange for a pick-up from
a local organization.
An (un lit)
c
k e e ps c lot an dle
sm e llin g f h e s
r e sh .
save space
Adding a second
rod across your
closet and using
huggable hangers
will more than
double your
usable space.
section your
drawers
Snag dividers at
The Container
Store to
compartmentalize
your drawers.
get your
shoes off
the floor
Cire Trudon
Abd El Kader
Candle, $85,
barneys.com
Hangers, Joy Mangano Home,
$20 for 24, hsn.com
A bright,
inexpensive rug
is an unexpected
but perfect
finishing touch.
my overstuffed dresser. Designing a
system with her on her laptop gave
me a giddy sense of control. But once
my new closet was built a couple of
weeks later, I found I didn’t know
how to use it.
Laura Cattano, pro organizer,
helped me take my new physical
space to the next level…and create
the mental space I needed to push
through my big cleanup. For the
price of a pair of shoes, she spacewhispers your place. “People use
their closets to hide things,” she
says. “I help people see what they
actually have.”
For hours one Sunday, we turned
my closet inside out. Saying goodbye to your stuff can feel strangely
emotional, because in fact, you’re
letting go of pieces of yourself, the
belongings that once defined you.
You have to acknowledge that you’re
not in college anymore (whoa—I
know!) and how you live is
completely up to you. And the sheer
volume of mess that you stir up is
dizzying. At one point, I was so
overwhelmed that Laura suggested I
take a walk around the block.
So yes, now I have lovely closets.
But I’m still me. Sometimes after a
long day, stepping out of my clothes
and leaving them in a heap feels like
the right thing to do. But if chaos is
contagious, so is order. Cleaning out
your closet might feel like a small
act, but it’s the first step to opening
doors to the new. Just see what else
falls into place.
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