Closet Smarts

Where feminism and fashion meet

BY DARCY SCANLON AND SCOTT KATHAN

HAVE YOU EVER WISHED a fairy godmother would swoop down and save you from your nightmarish wardrobe? Enter Closet Smarts (http://www.closetsmarts.com/), a service specializing in "wardrobe revamping, fashion tuning, and personal shopping." We brought owner and fashion smarty Emily Neill over to our sweet friend Jen’s house to separate the wheat from the chaff in her out-of-control garment collection. Jen filled out an enormous questionnaire designed to give Emily an idea of her style and what she was expecting. We were expecting nothing short of a spatial miracle.

Fortunately, miracles are something that Neill is very familiar with, both from her work as a "closet consultant" and as a graduate of Harvard Divinity School. As a self-described intellectual currently specializing in feminist theology, Neill used to harbor feelings of guilt about her taste for fine fashion. Then her friends, many of them also divinity students, began asking her for fashion advice. Slowly, informal advice-giving evolved into fashion coaching, and unltimately into consulting. Any guilt she may have felt evaporated when Neill’s fashion-challenged friends opened her eyes to how her work with them was so empowering — how her fashion consulting helped them deal with issues of self-image and insecurity. To paraphrase Neill, what a person wears can help her stand a little taller in all facets of life. Fashion and feminism are not mutually exclusive.

But back to Jen’s clothes. The jam-packed closet contained only Jen’s summer wardrobe, as her winter duds were still in storage. Emily first requested some photos of Jen so she could get an idea of her style and usual dressing preferences. Then it was into the closet. Starting from the top, Emily tore into Jen’s jeans and sweaters, which resembled an orgy of denim and wool squished onto the top shelf. We knew it was going to be a little rough on Jen when, during throw-out number three at 11:30 a.m., she sighed, "I need a drink." Emily pointed out ill-fitting garments and even clothes Jen thought were ill-fitting, but that just needed adjustments. We all learned that putty is not a good color on Jen, that her mom buys her some really nice clothes, and that pink is too childish for a woman (Darcy doesn’t believe it). We also found some strange items that made us wonder if Jen once moonlighted as a Midwestern kindergarten teacher.

It was really quite an amazing spectacle, akin to watching someone get her waist-length hair chopped to a bob. All observers were glad we weren’t the ones bearing the brunt of Emily’s expertise; but then we all went home and ironically tore through our own closets. Jen started out with 137 pairs of pants, and Emily thinned her down to a dozen! Well, not really, but she did start with 14 pairs of jeans and ended up getting rid of half of them, per Emily’s recommendation. By the end of the day, Jen said she had three trash bags’ worth of hand-me-downs for Goodwill — although we aren’t completely sure Jen’s really going to return that new BCBG sweater nixed by Emily . . . we shall see.