For many of you, particularly young men, the most robust part of your wardrobe is your shoe collection. While usually haphazardly strewn about, this is the time to catalogue your kicks. Whether it’s by color, brand, style or season, find an effective way to display your shoes while best utilizing that precious closet space.

Get A Shoe Rack

If you are truly short of space, one of those plastic hanging racks attached to your bedroom door does help, but, at the point we’re all a bit past that. Rather, consider investing in a solid shoe rack. Our recommendation? Find the six or so pairs of shoes you wear most often, and consolidate your current rotation together. Display them prominently, and make sure they’re easy to reach. As for the rest? Invest in some plastic storage bins and slide them underneath a bed or on top of your dresser. Winter boots in particular take up a lot of space, so if you can find a way to store them out of sight or in a corner you rarely use, you’ll free up plenty of room. Of course, if you are a true sneakerhead, you may want to go ahead and instill shelving to more prominently display your sneakers, however having your Jordans on the wall can send the wrong message.

Clean Your Shoes
We have already written extensively on how to properly clean your sneakers. While we won’t go into the nitty gritty details here, as far as spring cleaning is concerned, you will want to focus on white sneakers—leather and canvas in particular. First, do yourself a favor and go re-familiarize yourself with the cleaning process, then make sure your leather and canvas sneakers are shining bright as we work our way towards spring. Of course, if a pair is beyond repair, it’s time to consider letting them go.

Sell Your Old Shoes

As you work your way through the pile, you may find some old discarded pairs that no longer suit you, or discover unopened shoeboxes you forgot you even had. If that is the case, first, consider how they would fit into your current rotation. If they are seasonally inappropriate, store them. If they simply don’t work for you anymore, time to sell. For those interested, we have an entire guide on how to sell sneakers, too.

After getting your shoes in order, it’s time to figure out the rest of the closet. The first step, separate out anything that needs cleaning. After a long winter, many of your jackets and coats no doubt took a beating and, to ensure they last, you must properly take care of them. Vacuum sealing a waterproof jacket before it's properly cleaned can be a death sentence. Next, like you just did with your sneakers, find the six to eight items you wear most frequently and consolidate them. A perfect wardrobe can fit on a small rolling rack, so if you're smart and edit out the fluff, you can get that much closer to the coveted “uniform” stylish guys everywhere rave about. Once everything is clean, properly stored and edited, you will be that much closer to nailing every spring outfit.

Proper Storage

When storing your clothes, first ensure all garments are properly washed and taken care of (more on that below). Next consider investing in some garment bags or simple plastic covers for jackets and tailoring and fold carefully to avoid permanent creases. Ideally, use plastic containers or a closed dresser of some sort, and carefully fold the jackets (preferably inside garments bags) inside. Lastly, find a dry, dark place to store the items to avoid moths, dust, mold and sun damage. If you properly store your heavy coats and jackets your closet will instantly expand, and getting dressed will be significantly less overwhelming. Please note that leather should never under any circumstance be folded, and since you can get away with wearing it for most of the spring, you’re best off simply leaving it in your closet.

Only The Essentials

You had all fall and winter to layer. Spring is all about cozy sweaters, denim and loud colors. As such, you should pare down and focus on your essentials while keeping in mind current trends. By highlighting key pieces, keeping a tight wardrobe edit and picking up one or two trending items along the way, you can create a curated wardrobe that not only reflects you, adapts and feels current.

Now that you’re not out and about everyday, you finally have the time to take a step back and do a deep clean. Given that, just like the rest of us, you are stuck inside, you have the opportunity to inspect everything in your closet. While we’re all for worn-in workwear and distressing, nothing ruins an outfit like a undesirable stain or worse a foul smell, so time to go through and make sure everything looks, feels and smells just the way it’s supposed to.

Cleaning Your Clothes

In light of our current situation, now more than ever disinfecting your clothing should be your highest priority. The basic principle is simply to follow care labels, laundering like colors together and hang drying whenever possible. For clothes that require dry cleaning, if you have the ability to safely drop them off, do so. If you don’t have access to a washing machine, the bathtub is a great alternative, however carefully inspect the detergents and bleach you use to make sure you don’t end up with a stained tub. If nothing else, consider ordering a non-reactive spray cleaner, spot treatment and letting the item air dry for 24 hours-plus. For those looking for additional information, our in-depth guide on how to clean your clothes is an invaluable resource, if we do say so ourselves.

Inevitably, even the greatest pieces reach the end of the road. While sweaters, button-ups and pants have a long lifespan, unfortunately many of your basics do not. Now that we’re all pretty much wearing pajamas day-in and day-out you can finally pick through that mountain-sized pile of laundry that’s been building up. In order to downsize and purge yourself of those stained white tees, hole-ridden socks and worn-one-too-many-times boxers, take advantage of your daily sweatpant and hoodie outfit and look through each and every basic you own. We guarantee more than one is past its prime.

Vintage Versus Garbage

Clearly, some T-shirts have hit the end of the road. A massive pit stain or a dark oil stain on a white T-shirt is as good an indication as any that they have got to go. But deciding whether or not a T-shirt is aging gracefully and on its way to a worn favorite (or is slowly becoming trash) is slightly more nuanced.

Granted, there are some ways to differentiate between the two. First, black T-shirts—and dark color palettes in general—tend to age best whereas brighter colors quickly lose their luster. As for wear and tear, natural distressing is great, but is very much unique to the individual. It doesn’t matter if your used black shirt looks straight out of Cobain’s wardrobe if you don’t match the part. Basically, if a shirt feels slightly too edgy or too far gone, it definitely is.

When to Donate

While getting out to the Salvation Army or Goodwill is not currently a viable option, if clothes are still salvageable however no longer suit you—and are not suited for resale—it’s time to hit the donation bin. Just because you never plan on wearing that dusty grey workout shirt ever again, doesn’t mean someone else won’t. Once a year, a donation purge is a solid bet, so as you go through the closet, may as well get a jumpstart, even if you can’t drop off the goods quite yet.

Time To Re-Up

After taking stock of your core essentials, re-upping on the basics is always a good call. A quick trip through our selection of Uniqlo, James Perse and Reigning Champ and you’ll have all your bases covered. Take heed of both our spring and summer](https://www.grailed.com/drycleanonly/summer-outfits-men) trend and try to stick solid colors and you’ll be set for the year.

Now, as you parse through the wardrobe for the first time in months, you will undoubtedly come across pieces that while in perfectly good condition no longer suit your aesthetic or simply feel out of step with where both your style and trends are going. Rather than simply give them away or dump them, we’re here to help. By selling off a few pieces, you not only make space in your closet but get some additional cash in hand to pick up precisely what you need for the months ahead and fill any voids in the wardrobe.