Closet control by "seasons"

There's no shortage of writing about wardrobe planning, cleaning out one's closet, blah blah blah. It's a first-world problem and not exactly earth-shattering – unless we consider the literal sense and go into all the environmental problems of fashion – but this is how I currently manage my closet space.

I have four groups of clothing items ("seasons") that I switch in and out of use at certain times of year – I find the solstices and equinoxes easy to remember. Two of these groups are in use, and in the more accessible part of my closet space, at any given time. At the moment, that's spring and summer; it'll be summer and fall next. This was part of winter and spring, shuffled together a bit:

Each of these groups is allowed to contain up to a certain number of pieces. I'm a little more lax with this when the group is actually in use, but by the time it goes out of rotation it has to be no more than 24. That total fits okay in my closets. I also have a couple of small, completely unrelated sections for activewear, outerwear, and special occasions; they don't have to follow these rules and are kept out of the way of the everyday items.

I'm trying to keep the colour schemes of all four groups roughly compatible, more or less fitting into what certain colour analysts might call Soft Summer or Dark Winter, but this is very much a work in progress: I have older items that don't match and still aren't quite worn out or dispensable enough to get rid of just yet. The bright pink spring dress above was an example, although it's on its way out because I've had it with the poor quality of the fabric.

Each group has a slightly more specific colour scheme within the range. Spring has my clearer pastels and silver grey, summer is a little hazier and more faded while still having highish contrast, fall is warmest, and winter is smoky and darkest. Each group is meant to try to cooperate with the neighbouring seasons, since items from both of the groups in rotation at any given time should ideally be able to work together. On the other hand, for example, the spring plums don't have to get along with the fall browns, since they're never in rotation together.

At present I'd say I'm happiest with what I have for winter, least happy with summer (a lot of the colours I've got there aren't right at all), and spring has a fairly dire shortage of pants, which means I have to rely on the winter or summer ones. I have two or three projects in the works to remedy that.

This scheme works okay in a fairly monotonous climate. More extreme temperatures might require a silly number of layering pieces to make it work. But it gives me a fresh look at what I already have, every time I switch a new group in.

Lazy wardrobe evaluation

For various reasons, work among them, I haven't been getting all that much sewing done. But the weather has recently changed, leading me to think about wardrobe planning. Now, there's no shortage of resources about this. Many of them take the "haul everything out and have a big think" approach. Nothing wrong with that, I do it sometimes, and probably anyone who's set out to find articles or books on the topic is contemplating doing something drastic anyway. But of course, it can't be done every day.

Day-to-day, the way I usually organize my closets is a rotational system. I doubt I'm the first one to think of it: Whenever something has been worn/comes out of the wash, I put it back at one end of the closet. I try to make my next choice of what to wear from the opposite end, or close to it. If anything really backs up there, that means it's being passed over repeatedly, and maybe I need to do something about that.

Other places, you'll commonly see questions about whether the item fits, needs some sort of repair/is beyond repair, is too outdated, etc. I'll skip over those and go to a few other, perhaps subtler problems I've seen with my own stuff.

• It's the wrong level of formality for what I usually wear. In that case, I might move it to either my "formalwear" or "lounge/workout wear" section, if it fits in there and I intend to keep it. (I use the same rotational system for those sub-areas, but I'm a little less ruthless with the formalwear because I'm not a socialite… though in view of that, I probably do need to stop sewing so much formalwear and costumes. Moving right along….)
• I don't mix patterns fearlessly, so printed and even some tone-on-tone separates can be hard to pair up. That usually means I need a higher ratio of solids to prints for that season.
• Some tops need a skin-tone bra, which I think are kinda ugly/boring, so I often don't have a lot of them. When that issue comes up, it means I need to bite the bullet and either buy more of those bras, or get rid of some of those tops.
• Short tops and low-waisted bottoms don't play nicely. This can mean getting stricter about the lengths/waist positions of things I buy/make/keep, or making sure I have quite a few longer tops and/or higher-waisted bottoms. (I think really high-waisted pants are problematic—harder to fit, and since I've got a long rise, they can be unflattering unless they're quite loose—so I tend to prefer skirts for the latter case.)
• The color doesn't match the palette I'm trying to work toward, and therefore most of my other clothes and accessories. There isn't a lot I can do about this, since I'm not willing to dye things, so I'm gradually phasing those things out. It does mean I rarely buy fabric online anymore, unless it's a site that gives out Pantone numbers, thread color numbers, or swatches. (I could write a lot more on that whole topic, but at the moment I'm working toward something of a Soft Summer/Carol Tuttle Type 2 palette.)

All of this lets me collect data over time, which puts me in a better position when I'm ready to do the "big think". I tend to make final decisions on what to get rid of a few times a year, when I switch things around to put the seasonally-appropriate ones in the most convenient closet. I'm trying to get a bit more systematic about that too; more on that later.