Behind every issue is a messy desk and a very sharp pair of eyes. Editors look at every story pitch, every photograph, and every piece of copy—and then they cut. Not because the ideas are bad, but because a great magazine, like a great wardrobe, is defined not by what it owns, but by what it chooses to show the world.
There is a reason your closet feels chaotic even when it's full. Possibly especially when it's full. We accumulate clothes the way we accumulate browser tabs — with intention at the moment of opening them, and a creeping sense of overwhelm shortly after. The floral dress bought for a wedding in 2019. The same black boot just in different versions. The four pairs of nearly identical dark-wash jeans, each purchased because you thought you'd finally found the right one.
Many of us actually do have a vision — it lives on a Pinterest board, a saved Instagram folder, a collection of screenshots that never quite makes it into real life. The problem isn't inspiration. It's the gap between what we pin and what we own. You save the same effortless, three-piece tonal outfit seventeen times and still stand in front of a full closet feeling like you have nothing to wear. That is what the closet edit is for.
What you need is not a tidying method, you need an editorial eye. To help you sharpen yours, I’ve featured some of the editors I admire most throughout this article. As you scroll, take a look at how they’ve curated their own style.
Editors don't approach a magazine spread asking, is this good? They ask: does this belong here? It's a subtler, more demanding question, and it's the one worth bringing into your wardrobe. Not whether a piece is beautiful, or expensive, or still technically wearable. Whether it belongs in the story you are telling about yourself, right now, in this particular life.
Before you touch a single hanger, establish your editorial brief. Every magazine has one, a guide that determines what makes the cut and what doesn't. Vogue doesn't run the same stories as Bon Appetit. They are both excellent. They are simply not the same publication.
Yours might be: a woman who moves between boardroom and weekend with ease, who dresses in neutral and loves a clean minimalist look. Or: someone who lives in color, who dresses as a form of celebration. Or something harder to articulate — a feeling, a mood, a version of yourself you are moving toward. Write it down, even if it feels embarrassing. Editors do this. It is not vain, it is clarifying.
Ava is a Creative Editor at OOTD. She graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology and now covers your favorite fashion figures, events, and trends.
Bring everything out. Every piece, every drawer, every corner of the "I'll deal with it later" chair. Editors do not work from memory — they need to see the whole issue before they can make decisions about any individual story. Lay it out. See the volume. Most people are genuinely shocked by what they own (I know I always am!)
Handle each piece and ask the editorial question: does this belong in my magazine? Not "could I wear this someday" — but does this belong here? Things that belong have a sense of immediate need. You can picture the outfit. You know exactly when you'd reach for it. Everything else is pending.
The four-jeans problem is a useful case study. Most of us have a version of it, the same item in slight variations, each purchased because the last one wasn't quite right. Lay them side by side. Try them on if you have to. Then ask: which one would I buy today, right now, if I were shopping with intention? Keep that one. The others are evidence of a search that's already over.
Every editor has a maybe pile. Every editor also knows that the maybe pile is where good judgment goes to die. The piece you are uncertain about is almost never the piece you end up wearing. It is the piece that remains in your closet for two more years, occupying physical and psychic space, continuing to ask its small persistent question. Be rigorous with your maybes. Give them a deadline: if you haven't worn it or had cause to reach for it in the next three months, it goes.
Lay out what’s left. Does it actually look like one person’s life, or a dozen different people who don't know each other? An edited wardrobe has a point of view. It’s the difference between a closet full of 'stuff' and a closet full of outfits you actually want to be seen in.
I want to clarify that having more than one style is not a problem. A lot of people move between aesthetics, a crochet mini dress and heels one day, a streetwear look the next. The question to ask isn't is this consistent? but is this me now? You will likely find two distinct wardrobes folded together in your closet: the one you actually live in, and the one belonging to a version of you from three years ago. That past self had good taste. She just doesn't live here anymore. Let her things go.
There is a particular kind of grief that attaches to getting rid of clothes. The dress from your grad party, the coat that cost more than your rent, the necklace you bought shopping with your long-distance bestie—these are not just objects. They are evidence of who we used to be. But an editor knows when a story has reached its end. They recognize that a piece served its purpose beautifully, and that the purpose has passed.
Once the closet has some open spaces, there is room to add what you actually love. Stop asking if you have "enough" clothes and start looking for the specific absences: the winter coat you’ve been improvising around for years, the perfect pair of black heels, the everyday work bag. Great editors don't just cut, they commission. They identify what the issue needs and they find it, deliberately.
Use your Pinterest board as a literal shopping list. Shop for the specific piece you keep pinning, not in a sale section that redirects you toward things you didn't know you wanted. The difference between a complete wardrobe and an overstuffed one is simple: one was built by intention, the other by opportunity.
The wardrobe you want is not more. It is less, chosen better. A magazine that publishes everything is just an archive. Your closet deserves a stronger editorial vision than that.
