It’s officially Spring, the season of new beginnings. One of the most notorious practices that people engage in during this time a year is “Spring Cleaning”. It’s time to declutter your life and throw out the useless junk that you no longer need. Your wardrobe is not excluded. Open your closet doors wide and prepare for a bumpy ride, no item of clothing is safe.

First thing’s first, take everything out of your closet until it’s as bare as the day you moved in. This way every item gets inspected thoroughly and no piece of clothing regains entry to your closet without proving its worth. Have all of your clothes laid out on your bed.

Try everything on! Just like when you go to clothing stores, everything looks good on the hanger. However, it’s a different story when the clothes touch your skin. Actually, wearing the clothes will let you know what fits, what is too small or big, what looks good, and what looks terrible. More importantly, you get to reconnect with your clothes to see if the items are still worth keeping.

During this process, it’s important to come to terms with your size. Not everything will fit how it used to, but it’s up to you to realistically determine if your body will ever fit into that size again. It’s okay to keep clothes that have a 1-2 size difference than your current size; especially if your weight constantly fluctuates. However, anything over two sizes bigger or small must go, without a doubt. You need clothes that you can wear now.

Pay attention to damaged good. Look out for clothing that has stains, tears, rips, missing buttons, or broken zippers. Some of these things can easily be fixed, but sometimes it’s not worth the hassle. If you think the item can be salvaged place it into a bag or bin for clothes that must be repaired. Once the item is restored it can come back into your closet. If you don’t see yourself restoring the item, then get rid of it. The goal is to eliminate useless items from your wardrobe, so keeping damaged clothing in your closet is a no can do.

If you don’t wear it, then why do you have it? Sometimes an item may fit like a glove and look spectacular on you, but the only problem is you don’t wear it. The items that you rarely wear are also taking up space. Before anything goes back into your closet you should have a good reason to keep it.If there’s nothing wrong with an item and you can’t think of a good reason to keep it then it should go. Another option is to make an effort to wear the things that you don’t wear over the next year. By this time next year, if you haven’t worn them then it’s obvious that you never will.

Following this process should leave you with a closet full of functioning clothes that you can start wearing today. All of the items that you have eliminated from your wardrobe should be donated to a charitable organization. Never throw away used clothes, even if they’re damaged. There’s always a charity that can find a use for almost anything. The best part is now you should have enough room in your closet to repopulate your wardrobe with new clothes. Have fun shopping!