Wouldn’t it be wonderful to open up your closet and know that everything in it was a 10/10 for fit, comfort, quality, and color? That’s an ideal wardrobe. Your ideal wardrobe consists of things that fit perfectly while flattering your figure and color preferences. Better yet, the ideal wardrobe consists of fabrics with a pleasing texture (bye-bye scratchy sequin top!) that you feel great wearing.
This idea of having a 10/10 wardrobe comes from Sherry Petersik of the “Young House Love” blog and podcast. She keeps a minimal wardrobe and uses 10/10 for fit, quality and comfort. Whenever she considers buying a new clothing item, she asks whether it’s going to raise or lower her closet average. If it is not a 10, she’d be bringing down her wardrobe average. So, she leaves it in the store. Why ruin a perfect score, after all?
Sherry washes clothes once a week and has a “uniform” of sorts. She has 10 bottoms (4 pairs of jeans, 4 shorts, 1 skirt and 1 pair of yoga pants) and a few dresses, tops and blazers. She mixes and matches everything to get lots of different outfits with relatively few items.
Here is an ideal wardrobe suggestion for women. Try to streamline down to your 30 favorite items: 3 dresses, 2 jackets, 3 skirts, 3 cardigans, 2 trousers, 2 jeans, 3 coats, 7 tops, 3 t-shirts or casual tops. This is just a guideline, so feel free to create your own ideal wardrobe based on your lifestyle and work needs. If you use this as a starting point and pick your 10-out-of-10 favorites, then the rest could go into a storage bin to see if you actually want them before you donate it all.
I like the idea of experimenting with a minimal ideal wardrobe and having the reserves stashed away for a few months just to be safe. Remember to put a date on the box in reserve so you don’t hang onto it for too long. If you haven’t worn it in a year, it is very unlikely you will ever wear it again!
Sherry’s rule reminded me of my grandmother’s rule for all purchases. If it isn’t 100%, don’t buy it. If you have to ask, then it isn’t right. You’ll know the moment you put on something fabulous because it zings and makes you feel fabulous! If your current wardrobe falls behind on its average, you can raise your average by getting rid of the items that don’t make the grade. And then use that as motivation to keep your wardrobe ideal.
This 10/10 strategy is great for every area of your life. Plus, it’s a great way to save money and keep out clutter. Why buy those rhinestone earrings when you already have a pair?
I just used the following criteria to thin out my own closet:
- Does it fit?
- Do I love it? (10 out of 10)
- How often do I wear it? (if you don’t wear it, even if it is a 10 out of 10, there is no point keeping it!)
- Is it versatile? This is helpful if you have little space and need to prioritize the clothing options that mix and match with everything else.
The Lazy Way to Create Your Ideal Wardrobe
If this feels like too much work, the easiest way to sort your clothes is to reverse all the hangers in your wardrobe. Then, when you wear something, you’ll hang it back the normal way. After a few months you can remove all the things that you never wore and donate them. This makes the decision making very easy. Most people discover they only wear about 20% of their clothes on a regular basis. So you should be able to get rid of over half your clothes without much effort using this closet clearing method. I love these “no-decision making needed” ways to clear clutter. If you have other tips like this for making clutter clearing brainless, please let me know (email admin@lifecoach.com)!
Bonus Tip for Organizing Necklaces
Here’s a handy tip for organizing your necklaces. I used self-sticking cork boards on the inside of my wardrobe door. Then, I hung up all my necklaces using push pins. I used to keep necklaces in my dresser drawer. But hanging them makes them easy to see. I find I’m now wearing necklaces more often because I see them. As an added bonus, they don’t get tangled up and are pretty to look at!
