Rotating Your Clothes by Season

Rotating Your Clothes by Season

Sorting

If you’re low on space or want to make your wardrobe easier to use, we recommend separating your clothes by season and then rotating what you keep in your closet throughout the year.

If you’ve never done this before, you’ll have to do some work deciding which season some clothes go in. Does this sweater go in fall or winter? Are these shoes okay for the beach? You can decide how you want to group your clothes based on how the seasons progress where you live. For example, a Floridian will probably have more summer clothes and will need them for longer than a Minnesotan, while the Minnesotan will probably have snow clothes the Floridian won’t.

As you’re sorting through your clothes, you should take the time to clean and repair any clothes that need it. This might mean a trip to the dry cleaner as you don’t want to be putting dirty clothes into storage, nor do you want to be surprised by damage you’d forgotten about on a favorite garment.

While you’re taking the time to sort out clothes that need cleaning, pick out a few off-season items to keep available. A couple pieces of fall clothes kept out in warmer seasons can save you on the occasion that it gets colder than you expected, and particularly if you live in a desert climate, you’ll be happy you kept some warm weather clothes available through the winter. Keep these off-season clothes either with the rest of your current wardrobe or stored in an easily accessible but out-of-the-way location.

Storing

Decide how you’ll store the off-season clothes. Vacuum packing is easy and takes up much less space, but provides far less access than plastic bins, and hanging or stacking on shelves allows clothes to breathe and provides the easiest off-season access. It will be best to take a look at what you’ll be storing and make storage decisions based on what will be best for each item. Snow clothes can be easily vacuum packed, while swimsuits don’t need any compression at all and can therefore be stored in any way you please.

Take stock of the areas you have around your home or within your walk-in that could be used for storage. Make sure it’s out of the way, someplace you won’t see often; there’s little point in rotating your clothes if you leave them all out anyways. Basements and garages are great places to store clothes that are sealed from moisture. If you have a hall or coat closet you don’t use much, hang your off-season clothes in there. Shirts and pants can be folded and placed alongside shoes in a guest-room closet. The options are endless, and you’ll just need to figure out what works best for you.

Dealing with wrinkles

Wrinkled clothes are something of an inevitability when storing your clothes. The trick is to reduce how many wrinkles are created and then dealing with everything that’s left. Before storing your clean clothes, run them through the drier for a few minutes to warm them up. Fold, roll, or hang the clothes the way you intend to store them, taking care to keep them wrinkle-free while you’re doing so. As the clothes cool off, the fabric will set in the shape you’ve folded it into.

As you put your clothes into storage, take care. It’s better to take up more space with loosely packed wrinkle-free clothes than it is to cram as many clothes as you can into a small space, generating untold wrinkles by doing so. Prevent wrinkles while vacuum packing by using bags that are appropriately sized for what you’re storing, allowing you to fold items fewer times.

The Ultimate Solution

The ideal way to store and rotate your wardrobe is with storage that’s designed specifically for it. Closet Factory can build exactly what you need, with enough room for this season’s wardrobe to be beautifully displayed and easily accessed, while keeping off-season clothes stored properly but out of sight. From smaller, dispersed solutions to one grand walk-in, Closet Factory will work with you to create the truly custom closet of your dreams, perfect for rotating your wardrobe seasonally.