What you should do for a smart wardrobe

Spring is the right time to start not only a go-through cleaning of the house, but also a close overview of the closet. A couple of weeks ago, while in the middle of the spring reshuffling of almost everything, I discovered, not with a happy smile, that although most of my life I had a nomadic life, with moving all around the globe and back, I gathered so many disparate pieces of clothing, from family memories to presents and various results of impulsive shopping that I can hardly match but carried with me every time. Nonchalantly I decided to make a big pile of not-worn clothes that soon will find their way in new, more friendly closets. My selection of sorts was impulsive, not the result of close calculation anyway, following the raw remark: 'What are these clothes doing into my life?'

It was before I discovered this book, written by the Berlin-based Anuschka Rees, which is more than a decluttering guide, but a step-by-step, mathematically driven advice about how to discover your style - 'not based on trends' - and create 'a wardrobe that's perfectly tailored to your unique personal style and your life'. In Vivienne Westwood's words quoted at the beginning of the book: 'Buy less, choose well, and make it last'.

But until you reach this illuminated level, a lot is to be done: a closet diagnostic, search for authenticity, various checking lists about what suits you well and your current work and personal stage until identifying the patterns and fabrics that represent you. The results are not supposed to take place overnight and a lot of experiments are in sight, such as trying various clothes and checking what clothes you wear and when and how do you match everything. Although not written explicitly in the book, I took this process as a stage of returning to your self and discovering how and who you genuinely are. 

At the end, you can just start anew. 'Your personal style is the result of many different influences, all the people you have met over the years, all the places you have traveled'. It may be an interesting process to go through at least once in a lifetime.
The book is available for pre-orders now, and will be published in September.

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher via NetGalley.com