Are you rough on your clothes? We always should have love and respect for things. Objects are not just objects, but companions. How do you fold your clothes, before you pack them away? The goal of folding clothes isn’t merely to tuck them into tiny little shapes, it’s actually a way to express gratitude for your clothes.
FOLDING CLOTHES
A key point in folding clothes is to fold with a lot of LOVE. Feel the fabric, check its condition. Stroke it, as if you’re petting it, and send love through the palm of your hand.
General Method of Folding:
1. Create a rectangle at the middle of your clothes, leaving a little gap at the bottom.
2. Fold in half.
3. Fold in thirds (so it’s a small rectangle.)
STORING CLOTHES
Have you ever walked into Thrift Town and seen how we display and categorise our clothing? This way you can also do it at home.
Try keeping similar-looking ITEMS, and similar COLOUR together. Hang sweaters next to sweaters, because they have a similar feel and material to it. Hang darker colours to your left and lighter colours to your right.
In your dresser, stack clothes upright and file them vertically, because when you stack them in the drawer, it's harder to see and you tend to forget what's inside.
If you don’t have a dresser, fold clothes and stock them upright in empty shoe boxes or baskets, and store them on racks. (Later you’ll know exactly what space of dresser to get).
You can also use other rooms to store your clothes in, for example, the guest bedroom closet.
THE FOLDING & STORING PROCESS
Give yourself one to two weeks to work on the following:
JEANS
1. Fold in half
2. Fold in half again.
3. Fold in thirds.
HOODIES
1. Arms to centre
2. Tuck the hood in
3. Roll into thirds
4. File them vertically in drawers, or pile them together
BABIES ONESIES
1. Fold in half
2. Tuck in sleeves
3. Fold in half
4. Fold in thirds
5. Put in a small box upright
SOCKS
1. Just stack together
2. Fold in half
Crew socks/thicker materials
1. Stack together
2. Fold in thirds
Babies socks
1. Place one on top of the other
2. Fold in half
UNDERPANTS
1. Fold the bottom up
2. Fold in half
3. Fold in half again
Pushup Bras
Space them in a way so you don’t smooch the cups, ex: spread out in a long shoe box behind each other, so it creates a colour gradient
Cupless bras
1. Fold in half
2. Tuck in straps
3. Store just like that
Soft cup bras
1. Fold in half
2. Tuck in straps
3. Roll up
NECKTIES
1. Fold in half to the label
2. Fold in half again
3. Roll it up
4. Place next to each other in a little box in the drawer
You can also hang ties.
SCARVES
1. Drape in half over your hand
2. Make sure the fringe is rolled inside
3. Roll up
4. Keep bigger scarves together and smaller scarves together
BAGS
Use the bag-in-bag method:
1. Take out any tissue paper
2. Put similar-sized bags inside each other
3. Keep handles visible to identify bags
SHOES
1. Display heavy shoes, like booties, on the bottom
2. Light shoes, like sandals, go on top
Arrange shoes in a way that sparks joy. Some like to place them out to see.
Arrange by colour, shape, brand or year. Keep similar COLOURS, and the same TYPES of shoes together (boots together, sandals together, sneakers at the bottom.)
Place small shoe racks on your shelves.
Empty shoe boxes can also serve as racks, for height.
If displaying a thin, high-heel shoe, let it stand on a shoe box lid on top of the rack.
Maybe you want to discard the shoes you HAVE been wearing a lot and keep the ones you want to start wearing.
Bonus
MAKEUP/TOILETRIES
Always start with the easiest items first.
By using boxes, you can compartmentalize the drawers neatly. Store makeup etc. in small containers – like shoe box lids/paper jewellery containers – and put similar clumps of same-looking items together (like it would be displayed in a store).
Store everything upright, with taller things in the back.
This is the way to neatly fold and store your clothing (and beauty stuff.)
To learn how to organise other items in your house, refer to Marie Condo's book: 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up'
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