Refreshing Your Wardrobe: Spring Cleaning and Seasonal Rotation

A change in season is a natural time to think about updating our wardrobes. This process can feel exciting and also overwhelming. If we simply buy new stuff without a plan, there’s a good chance we’ll wind up with items we don’t need, leaving us unsatisfied and more overwhelmed than when we started. Here are some tips to make the process productive and leave us feeling more connected to what we wear. 

Seasonal Rotation

Depending on the climate we live in, we might need a seasonal wardrobe that changes with the weather. For those of us without endless storage space, we need to rotate our clothes each season. The start of a season is a good time to move last season’s clothing into storage and make room for the current season’s items. 

Spring Cleaning

One seasonal tradition is spring cleaning. We apply this to our homes as well as our closets. Spring renewal might start with a wardrobe edit. This includes taking stock of what we already own to decide which clothes, shoes and accessories we should keep vs. which items we can let go of because they no longer serve us. 

For spring, we will do this with the winter items we’re packing away, then repeat the process as we fill our closets with the spring items from storage that we have not seen for awhile.

This editing process usually means we will wind up making space in our closets. In doing this, we might discover there are a few pieces we are missing for the coming season. Once we have made space, the temptation is to fill up that space with new items. This is a chance to take a “purchase pause” and make a plan.

Conscious Consumption

The more we have, the more choices we have to make. This increases our stress. Practicing more conscious consumption involves making what we own last longer, buying less, and making more intentional purchases.  The best wardrobe planning is a continuous one. For instance, keep a note in your mobile phone to track items you need, and items you want. Each season you can revisit and update this list. Saving it in your phone makes it easy to reference on impromptu shopping trips. Ask yourself if you need an item, and whether you can combine it into at least three outfits. If not, just say no.

Shopping Sustainably

How do we know if we’re shopping sustainably, when it is well known that the clothing supply chain is long and non-transparent? A good rule of thumb is to focus on sustainable fashion brands that are small, local, and minority-owned. Seek out brands that publish information on their supply chains including how they treat their employees and the environment. 

Thankfully we have great resources like the annual

Remake Fashion Accountability Reportthat do this time-consuming research for us. Remake takes an intersectional approach to the human rights, environmental, economic, and political issues embedded in fashion supply chains. The report evaluates the corporate accountability efforts of 52 of the largest fashion companies.

Beyond Buying 

Conscious consumption in our closets goes beyond buying. Building a wardrobe we love is easier when we learn how to manage our wardrobes. Wardrobe management follows the life cycle of a garment. If we only focus on acquiring new items, we’re ignoring half of the life cycle. By giving more attention to the items we already own, we spark our creativity and have more fun with our wardrobe. We do this through wardrobe edits, creating new outfits, and repairing and upcycling our clothing.

A big part of making more out of what we already own is connection. We are connected to our clothes by storytelling. We create stories every day, and part of those stories relate to what we are wearing.  Orsola de Castro is an internationally recognized opinion leader in sustainable fashion and the author of Loved Clothes Last (Penguin, 2021). She says, “My clothes are me — my chosen skin, my principles, my story…Tell your clothing love story. Share those stories with your friends and followers, and with a global community eager to make changes, as you are.”

Spring renewal includes refreshing our wardrobe. It is a great opportunity to make sure how we dress is telling the story of who we are and want to be.