Real Life Closet Edit Over 40 - Nada Manley

The media wants us to believe that every woman has a closet the size of a gymnasium filled with designer clothes, artfully displayed like a museum collection.

For most of us, however, our real-life closets reflect our real lives and this includes dealing with limited closet space in smaller or older homes (like mine! we built a closet in our master bedroom because there really wasn’t one), sharing closet space with our husbands, and storing clothes in different rooms of the house.

That’s real life.

And that’s one of the many reasons I was excited when Dorothy invited me to do her closet edit, and allowed me to share it with you. There is nothing like seeing a real-life closet edit to inspire you in your own closet edit, and to give you relatable tips you can use in your own wardrobe.

Here, a real-life closet edit that answers some common questions:

What should you store in your regular closet?
How long to hold onto less-than-ideal items? (There’s a rule for this!).
The step by step process of a closet edit

And now, a little about Dorothy. Dorothy and I are friends from church. She is an artist and an elementary art teacher in her 40s with a fun and creative sense of personal style. She is a Style Dial Blue with Clear coloring.

And now for the steps of the Reverse Closet Edit.

Identify The Favorites

We started by pulling Dorothy’s go-to favorite pieces and putting them on a rack.

Identify The Essentials

Next, we identified the essentials, which include some white tanks, jeans, and solid-colored tops. Essentials are usually solid, neutral, and versatile, but they don’t have to be plain. This tank has pretty lace details.

Create Outfits

After all that work, there’s the fun part of creating outfits and shopping in your own closet, and hopefully falling in love with your wardrobe again. (Or maybe, sadly, for the first time).

Closet Edit Mantras

And now, for some words of wisdom that will hopefully help you with your closet edit.

The Finished Closet

The closet organization system included pants on space-saving hangers, followed by sleeveless tops, sleeved tops, jackets, dresses, and sweaters. The gray bins at the top (from Dollar Tree!) held handbags, turtlenecks, jeans, and scarves.