Jennifer Mackey-Mary: Hello Gorgeous! 

It’s another episode of The Everyday Style School: Summer Shorts–our weekly summer series sharing a quick style thought or tip to help you save money, save time, and get the wardrobe you’ve always wanted.

I’m your host, Jennifer Mackey-Mary. I’ve been dressing women for 25 years, and I’m on a mission to help you love the way you look every day. 

Today’s tip  is probably one you’ve heard before, but it’s also probably my favorite on this list, so let’s just get right to it so I can talk about it more. Your closet should be the boutique you shop from each morning. 

Why do I love this one so much? Good question. It comes down to two things. First, I like to shop. Stores make me happy. I love the feeling of finding a cute little boutique where everything in it is my style its like stumbling upon a treasure chest. But the other reason is that I know how much power your closet has to make or break your day. The time you spend getting dressed in the morning can leave you feeling like a hot mama ready to take on the world, or a hot mess who wants to hide in the house. Do not underestimate how powerful that part of your day is, and how much your closet and wardrobe can affect you.. Doesn’t it make sense that you’d want to start your day off on a positive note?

When I say your closet should be the boutique you shop from each morning, there are really two parts to this–what’s in it, and how the space makes you feel. 

I want you to imagine for a minute that you need an outfit for a work event or a night out, so you go shopping. You stumble into that treasure chest store I described earlier–everything in it feels like it was made for you. It’s your style, it fits you, and there’s more than one outfit that would work–in fact, its hard to choose which of the great outfits you should get. How do you leave that store feelling? Pretty great, right? Looking forward to the event, feeling pretty darn good about yourself. 

Now, let’s say instead of that magical boutique, you stumble into a store that has lots of things, but none of them are quite right. The salesperson is very sweet, and is bringing you options to try on. The first dress doesn’t fit, but she says, you know if you lost 15 pounds it would be perfect. You’d be like, yeah, but I have to get dressed tomorrow. The next outfit fits, but is a little dated, and she says “oh, but just wait, it will come back in style”. She brings a blouse in a color you don’t feel great in, but tells you “its on sale. How can you pass up a deal like this?” The next outfit she brings you is a pantsuit, and when you try to explain that your event is pretty casual she says, you never know when you’ll need a good pantsuit. Finally, you find a skirt you love, but they don’t have any tops that go with it. You’re there for what feels like hours, and you leave with another pair of plain black pants and a top that will work, even though you don’t really love it. How do you feel leaving that store? I’m guessing a little different than the first one. Probably feeling bad about yourself and dreading whatever it is you need the outfit for.

If those two stores represented actual closets, which do you have? When you get dressed in the morning, do you struggle to choose which of the great options you should wear, or do you struggle to put together something…anything…that’s simply passable. Those scenarios give you very different energies, and you carry that with you into your day.

Do the clothes in your closet represent who you are, right now? Your style, your body, your lifestyle? Or does your wardrobe belong to someone else? The second half of my “Your closet should be the boutique you shop from each morning” quote is this–it’s not a museum to the person you used to be, or a storage facility for the person you might become”. 

Think about all the things you’re hanging onto that you can’t or don’t want to wear right now..The too small dress. Is it a reminder of thinner days, or are you hoping to get back into it some day? The suit you’re unlikely to wear now that you’re at home full time –is it a memento from a life you used to have, or are you hanging onto it because you might go back to work some day, even though that’s not in your 5 year plan?

A closet full of clothes that you can’t wear, don’t like, or don’t want to wear makes getting dressed more difficult. It takes time each day to rummage through everything, looking for the gems–we’ll talk more about that in a minute. But it can also be damaging on a deeper level. These unwearable clothes often serve as a daily reminder of weight changes, and past versions of yourself–and sometimes, where you are now doesn’t feel like success. We remember when we were younger, thinner, more stylish, had more exciting lives, and that can trigger guilt and regret, and sometimes even a sense of failure. Which is not a fabulous way to start your day. You need things that make you feel good about who you are, and where you are now. 

So that’s the first part– what’s IN your closet. Now let’s talk about the space itself. When I had you imagine walking into that treasure chest of a boutique, what did you visualize? For me, its a space that’s light and bright, with ivory walls and white shelving and big windows. Everything is organized in a way that makes it easy to shop, and there’s enough breathing room between the hangers on the racks so I can flip through things easier. The hangers are nice and have a little weight to them. The store even smells nice–like jasmine and amber–two of my favorite scents. Can you picture it? That’s my ideal boutique.

Your ideal boutique probably looks different than mine, but I’m guessing no one, not one person listening right now said “My ideal boutique looks like the clearance section of old navy at the end of a busy saturday” with clothes sliding off their hangers, folded piles falling onto the floor, racks packed so tight you can’t look at anything, a random men’s sweater stuck in the middle of the tank tops. Again, very different energies in those stores right? 
Just like we did before, ask yourself, if your ideal boutique was an actual closet, and my version of retail hell was an actual closet–which does your closet  more closely resemble?

Both of these spaces make you feel some type of way. My ideal closet makes me feel calm and in control. Maybe that’s not how you want your closet to make you feel–maybe you want to feel energized, or happy, or cozy–I don’t know..that’s up to you. But again, no one says, I’d really like to start my day feeling frantic and chaotic. But that’s what ends up happening when you can’t find that one black tee in the pile of 15 other black tees, or when your blouses are sliding off of the plastic tubular hangers, creating a mess for you to put away later. 

When we do our Ultimate Closet Clean out Challenges, its incredible to see the closet and wardrobe transformations, but what’s really amazing is how the owners of those closets feel when it’s done. Lighter, less stressed, more in control, more stylish. Just having a space that looks and feels nice makes women want to dress better. A nice space makes getting dressed more fun.

Hopefully, at this point you can see how having that ideal boutique closet makes your mornings, and your style better, and maybe you even realized that your closet is more of a museum or a storage unit or an old navy clearance section. But so what? What do you do about it? Most of us don’t have the budget to rebuild our wardrobes from scratch or do major home renovations.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. You can make small changes that add up to big results, and the first thing you need to do is take everything that isn’t your wardrobe out of your closet. Remember, your wardrobe is not all the clothes you own, it’s all the clothes you can, and do wear. I’m not going to tell you you have to get rid of all the too tight jeans you’re definitely going to wear again someday. That’s a discussion for another day, but I will say they don’t deserve to be in your boutique. Go through your closet, and pull out the clothes that are not part of your wardrobe. If you’re not ready to part with them, put them in a bin. Get them out of sight. As you add to your wardrobe, ask yourself if that item is boutique worthy. If it’s not, don’t buy it. Don’t buy filler.

When it comes to your boutiques physical space, a lot of women think if they don’t have a pinterest worthy closet, they’re out of luck. If I can’t have a marble topped island and a loveseat, why bother. Friends, we should know by now that Pinterest is not real life. In my career I’ve been in some of those closets, and they were gorgeous, but the reality is, the vast majority of my clients had small closets, awkward closets, builder grade closets that weren’t functional. So I guarantee you, no matter what social media tells you, you’re not alone in your unspecial closet. But again, there’s always something you can do. Start with organizing your closet better. Hang like items together. All dresses, all skirts, all pants. Then, the easiest, most cost effective way to upgrade your boutique is swap out your hangers. Trade those plastic tubular hangers in random colors for matching ones in either slim velvet or wood. Pro tip, if you want your closet to look more expensive or luxury, choose white or ivory. If you’re able, change out the light fixture. Lighting is so important, and most closets don’t come with fabulous, or even functional lighting. Heck, you can add battery powered, or rechargeable lights if you can’t wire something. Finally, add personal touches. If you have the room, add a piece of art that makes you happy. Put a few drops of good smelling oil on wool dryer balls and stash them around your closet. Paint the inside of your closet a color that makes you happy. None of these things need a contractor or a construction loan, but they’ll make a big difference in creating a space that makes you feel the way you want each day. 

When you start to look at your closet like a boutiqe, instead of a dumping ground that doesn’t matter, you start to make better choices about what you buy, what you keep, and how you take care of things. It creates standards for your wardrobe that you might not have otherwise. You stop wasting money on filler–I love it when one of our members says they returned something because it wasn’t boutique worthy– and your style just naturally improves.

Best of all though, when you create your ideal boutique, what you’ve really created is a launch pad for a better day, and that’s really what this is all about.
 
That’s all for this episode of Summer Shorts. I hope it inspires you to take even one small step towards turning your closet into your ideal boutique. As always Remember that your everyday matters, so get dressed for it.  Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next week.

Jennifer Mackey-Mary [outro]: And that's a wrap. Thank you for listening today. If you're loving the Everyday Style School podcast, I'd like to invite you to become a member of the Style Circle. It's our monthly all-access membership that gives you everything we create to make style easy, so you can save time and money, have easier mornings, and more confidence all day long. You get our seasonal capsule wardrobe guides, all of the masterclasses we offer, and our exclusive members-only podcast, The Everyday Style School Extra Credit. Plus, you're invited to the Facebook community, where you can get even more style support and inspiration. I would love to get to know you and support your style journey. It's just $19 a month, less than the cost of a clearance shirt you're never gonna wear. Come join me and make your everyday style easier.