10 Step Wardrobe Revamp

Quick navigation:

1. Your Approach to Personal Style
2. Wardrobe Detox
3. Find Inspiration and Create a Concept
4. Analyse your Lifestyle
5. Build a Capsule Wardrobe
6. Develop a Signature Look
7. Sort out your Work Wardrobe
8. Wardrobe Organisation
9. Maintenance: Overhauls and Mini Updates
10. Streamline your Beauty Routine

Here is a little step-by-step guide for a deep treatment revamp for wardrobes that need an extra dose of TLC! Use it to combat extreme boredom with the majority of your clothes and get one step closer to ‘closet heaven’ which is what I call the state when every single item in your closet reflects your personal sense of style, you face getting dressed every day with excitement, your wardrobe suits your needs exactly, you always feel like you have something to wear and you really could not wish for a better set of clothes. Reaching closet heaven might not be easy, but at least the process is fun :) I’ve written separate posts on many of these steps and I listed them below in the order that seems the most helpful to me, but feel free to pick and choose your own program. Happy revamping!

1. Your Approach to Personal Style 
Are you are minimalist or a maximalist? Would you prefer to own a small selection of high-quality items or a completely new set every season and lots of options? Before you start editing your wardrobe, think about your general approach to personal style and shopping, and maybe set a few guidelines and goals.  You can read about my own approach here.

2. Wardrobe Detox
Perhaps the most crucial step in the whole process is a thorough wardrobe detox. You need to get rid of everything in your closet that is tainting your vision of personal style in order to be able to add new items onto a clean, ‘pure’ canvas. I wrote a looong post about wardrobe detoxing, click here to read it.

3. Find Inspiration
On to the fun part! The next step towards an expressive, functional wardrobe is figuring out what exactly you want your personal style to be like. So, collect inspiration like crazy and analyse everything. Digital or physical moodboards are a great way to collect visuals all in one place. Read this post for more ideas.

4. Analyze your Lifestyle
There is no point in building a wardrobe around frilly crop tops, if you spent most of your time working in a conservative environment. Your wardrobe should not only express your idea of aesthetics but also be tailored to your lifestyle. In this post I wrote about how to make sure your wardrobe reflects your life, i.e. gives you enough outfit options for every single one of your activities. A while ago I found another cool method to match both your personal style and lifestyle to your wardrobe using interior design techniques created by the founder of Apartment Therapy. To find out more read this post.

5. Build a Capsule Wardrobe
When you are building a wardrobe from scratch (or even trying to rebuild a wardrobe that has no overall concept) it helps to first create a core collection of items that captures the essence of your style and is versatile enough to cater to most of your outfit needs. Curating the perfect capsule wardrobe is no easy feat; read this post for a detailed step-by-step guide.

6. Develop a Signature Look
Your signature look is the core component of your capsule wardrobe and should express the key ideas of your unique personal style. It is also the ideal remedy for hectic mornings :) Read this post for examples and more info.

7. Sort out your Work Wardrobe
If your office wear differs considerably from your everyday look, it might be a good idea to create a separate work capsule wardrobe. You can follow the same method as outlined in this post or, if you are just about to start a new job and need to put together a basic work wardrobe on a limited budget, check out my quick-fix approach here.

8. Wardrobe Organisation
Pay attention to how you organise your wardrobe; click here or here if you need some inspiration. Store things you wear often on shelves that you can easily reach and keep less frequently used items on top shelves or in bottom drawers. Only store clothes for the current season in your wardrobe, keep off-season items somewhere else (read this post for suggestions). Finally, make sure that you know exactly how to care for your items (laundry, folding, drying, etc.) so your carefully curated set of clothes will last a long time :)

9. Maintenance: Overhauls and Mini Updates 
Your wardrobe needs regular maintenance and updates to keep it perfectly tailored to your lifestyle and aesthetic ideas! I like to collect all of my inspiration on pinterest throughout the year, and do a thorough seasonal overhaul bi-annually, at the beginning of the (scientific) Fall and Spring seasons. My overhauls usually include o a quick detox and I also plan my capsule wardrobe for the upcoming season and take care of any repairs and replacements. Additionally, I do two mini updates at the beginning of the Winter and Summer season, just to update my wardrobe with a few cold/hot weather essentials like bikinis or winter coats. Read this post to find out more about my timeline of seasonal updates and this post for a detailed description of my bi-annual overhauls.

10. Streamline your Beauty Routine 
If you’ve caught the minimalist bug and are thinking about streamlining your beauty routine and product collection, use the momentum and do it once your wardrobe is all set and freshly edited! The essence of the minimalist approach to beauty is the same as the idea of building the perfect wardrobe instead of keeping a mishmash of impulse buys: It is about valuing quality over quantity and taking the time to curate a small set of products that are perfectly tailored to your style, skin and lifestyle. Read this post for a step-by-step guide on how to simplify and optimise your beauty routines.

Follow into mind on Bloglovin’.

*image via House Doctor