How to Organize Your Wardrobe Once and for All: 6 Pro Tips + Before and After Photos

If you organize your clothes in the wardrobe so that everything is in its place and properly arranged, maintaining order will be easy and simple in the future. Professional space organizer Polina Mal'kina shared her approach using examples from her clients.

Polina Mal'kina – Professional Space Organizer

Hack #1

Start by creating a layout plan for your items. Identify which clothes are worn most frequently, which less often, and what kind of clothing you have the most. After all, we are different – some prefer business attire while others stick to hoodies. Note where seasonal clothing is stored, whether there will be anything else in the wardrobe besides clothes, if bags need to be stored in the closet – and if so, how many. Hats? Shoes? Scarves? These are just a few clothing categories for which each should have its logical and convenient spot.

It's also important to understand who will be using the wardrobe, who participates in organizing items, and take into account habits and specifics of each family. All these details directly affect the organization.

The owner of the wardrobe wears both casual sportswear and office suits. Since she mostly works from home and rarely goes to the office, t-shirts, sport pants, and jeans are worn daily. Therefore, a chest of drawers at the entrance to the wardrobe was ideal for storing everyday items.

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Hack #2

The client was used to stacking t-shirts. This is convenient when there are only a few shirts. But in our case, we had many of them – white ones, printed, colorful, sporty, long-sleeved. To quickly find the right item, one has to dig through drawers. No order in stacks was possible.

That’s why I suggested vertical folding. Obvious benefits: space saving, all clothes visible, easier to maintain order, ideal when you have many items.

To separate categories and create order in the chest of drawers, we used special organizers from Interdesign and SKUBB IKEA.

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Hack #3

For jeans, we used shelves. Important points for stacking: no more than five items per stack and one row only. Otherwise, if you reach into the back of a shelf or even onto another level, the whole pile will collapse. Chaos returns.

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Hack #4

We placed the rest of the clothes on hangers as much as possible. Near the entrance – hoodies, since they are worn daily. Then less frequently used items – a hanger with blouses and party dresses. On the opposite side – office clothing.

If space allows, storing clothes on hangers is the simplest way to maintain order for all family members. However, there’s an important condition: for effective use of space with hangers, it's crucial to utilize the hooks maximally.

• Keep one item per hanger
• Hangers should face the same direction
• All hangers must be as uniform as possible

We used two types of hangers. Wooden ones for heavy items in the wardrobe, like hoodies and jackets. Thin plastic hangers were perfect for other clothes and saved space.

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Hack #5

What do we do with loungewear or clothes that were worn but can still be worn again? We throw them on a chair or hanger – somewhere, leading to chaos. I suggested creating an aesthetic area for 'legalized disorder'. This hack works very well with my clients.

We designate a place where the hand naturally reaches to drop an item. Yes, that’s convenient! We take a fabric basket and place it there. With just one movement of the hand, we leave current loungewear in it. It can be any basket that suits your taste and color. The key is that it stores clothes you no longer want to put in the wardrobe.

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Hack #6

All seasonal clothes should be stored in zones that don’t hinder access to daily essentials. Typically, these are upper shelves.

We distributed items into categories, selected matching boxes by style, and most importantly – labeled each box so you can easily find what you need on the shelf.

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And the most important thing – order in your clothes should serve you, not the other way around.

Photo on cover: ARXSIDE ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN STUDIO design project