5 Expert Tips to Spring Clean Your Wardrobe Quickly and Efficiently

There’s never been a better time to start organising your wardrobe for warmer spring months. The temperature rises, and that large overcoat just sits there, taking up valuable space in your closet. Cleaning out your wardrobe will take stress off your mind when deciding what to wear, but it also frees up space to make new decisions on what to buy for the upcoming season. We’ve spoken to model, actor, content creator, and lifestyle connoisseur Marty Thomas to add his expert advice to this article. He firmly believes in keeping your wardrobe concise, colour-coordinated, and versatile. Here’s how you can achieve a clean spring wardrobe quickly and efficiently.

1. Evaluate Existing Items for Next Season

List of benefits:

• Keeps your wardrobe relevant and consolidates your items
• Helps build on your style by staying away from seasonal trends and focusing on essentials
• Eliminates unnecessary items and clutter, allowing you to focus on pieces you’ll wear
• Makes room for new items that suit this upcoming season and those moving

This first step is the most time-consuming, and depending on the size of your wardrobe, we recommend allocating at least 30 minutes to this task.

Visualise the items by removing them from your wardrobe, laying them out flat, and starting to think about what you do and don’t need for dressing in the upcoming warmer months. Marty admits he’s a bit of a serial fashion hoarder, but he uses these five criteria to decide what to keep and what to sell: “It’s taking up too much space, I never wear it, it’s so dated, I’ve outgrown it, I don’t love it any more.”

Consider swapping out that villain overcoat for a more suitable chore jacket, swap those grunge-core ripped jeans for a pair of wide-leg chinos, and put that vintage band t-shirt aside for a clean white t-shirt.

Of course, we always recommend listing your lightly worn clothes on eBay, as this is a great way to recoup some funds.

2. Purge the Past

List of benefits:

• Creates space for modern, high-quality replacements
• Supports sustainability by giving clothes a second life
• Allows you to focus on pieces that truly reflect your current style and needs
• Good time to take photos for selling pages

Once you decide what to keep, sell, and donate, it’s time to start trying items. If a piece fits and you want to keep it, add it to a pile. If a piece doesn’t fit and you want to list it on eBay, add it to a pile to photograph it. And finally, if a piece doesn’t fit and it’s too poor to list for sale, add it to a donation bag.

Marty points out that our fashion choices are an expression of who we are, so decide accordingly. “We are not what we wear, but what we wear is an expression of who we are, so choosing to refresh your wardrobe is like a fresh start. It can be uplifting and joyful.”

3. Strategic Storage

List of benefits:

• Keeps your closet functional and seasonally focused
• Preserves the quality and longevity of winter items by storing them properly
• Simplifies your wardrobe by focusing on pieces you need for the season

This is also the time of the year to start packing away those heavy, unwearable wool coats, big sweaters, and boots because they’ll free up oodles of wardrobe space, and there’s at least six months until you will be wearing them again.

You’ll want to wash any clothes before storage, remove stains, and we always recommend dry-cleaning your items that are too bulky to wash at home.

Pick up a few plastic storage boxes from your local hardware store. Make sure they’re stackable and have a secure lid and a tight seal to prevent moisture from entering them and creating mould. Don’t store your clothes in cardboard boxes, as this can cause some white items to have a yellow tinge. Finally, fix any broken items before storing them in a cool, dark place away from natural light.

Large items can take up a lot of space, so our pro tip is to pack them in a vacuum bag. Depending on the size you require, these can be purchased from eBay for $10-40.

4. Build a Capsule Wardrobe

List of benefits:

• Your curated wardrobe will ensure effortless mixing and matching
• Reduces decision fatigue when dressing for work and events
• Maximises the versatility and wearability of each item

We’re firm believers in investing in fewer, higher-quality items. Once you’ve cleaned out your wardrobe, this feeling of relief will quickly be replaced by a sudden need to fill that hole. Don’t!

Think about adding fewer, higher-quality essentials that work together to build a capsule-style wardrobe. For this article, we’re focused on spring, so think about white t-shirts, striped button-ups, and shirt jackets. Of course, nothing beats a pair of tailored trousers, and you could even get away with some quality chino shorts, but more on that below.

Prioritise versatile pieces because they’ll never go out of style. You won’t spend as much time thinking about how to stand out and remain on-trend. Effortless fashion is the best fashion, and Marty Thomas says this is especially important to him when travelling. “Well, I travel a lot, and that is the challenge every time. What do I take with me? What do I leave behind? Fewer pieces mean you must be sharp with your choices and consider versatility and combinations.”

5. Organise Your Closet Like a Pro

List of benefits:

• Makes finding items quick and easy
• Creates a visually appealing, stress-free layout in your wardrobe
• Prevents creasing, prolonging the life of your clothes

So you’ve decided what to keep, and you’ve found a handful of new items to add to your wardrobe. Now is the time to organise it for the warmer months of spring.

The first step is investing in some clothes hangers. We always prefer velvet hangers, as they prevent collars from stretching. You can pick up a packet of 50 for around $40 from eBay, and it’s a wise investment for your new and lightly worn clothes. Also, consider space-saving hangers, where multiple items can be stored on one hanger. We use these to store trousers that we don’t wear as often.

If you have drawers in your closet, add dividers. These are an affordable way to visually access your most worn clothes more efficiently and with less thought. You can pick up these organisers for around $5-10 on eBay, and they look similar to fabric boxes. Simply measure the width and length of your drawers and find a suitable organiser. Most drawers are a standard length, so finding one that fits shouldn’t be difficult.

Finally, it’s time to organise your new spring capsule wardrobe into styles and then colours. Marty says he organises his t-shirts by colour, jackets by style, and trousers by style. “My wardrobe is well organised and colour-coordinated. This makes choosing what to wear a joy rather than a chore. Make it fun!”

White t-shirts are followed by black t-shirts and then coloured t-shirts. Jeans are on one end of the wardrobe before chino pants and formal trousers. Jackets move from lightweight shirt jackets to heavier overcoats hidden in the back of the wardrobe as they’re not typically worn in spring.

Expert tip: If you don’t have natural light pouring into your wardrobe, consider purchasing a battery, sensor-operated strip light. This will turn on when you open the wardrobe, making selecting clothes much more manageable.

BONUS TIP: Sell Your Items on eBay

We mentioned it earlier in this article, but you can list your lightly worn items on eBay and give them a second life in minutes. eBay has millions of buyers looking for items on its platform, so your items will be put in front of fashion-obsessed shoppers and can sell quickly, easily, and for a fair price.

Through cleaning out our wardrobe, we’ve become obsessed with new selling tools like eBay’s AI function (which helps build out the description of your listing quickly and easily) and its Background Remover (to make your items pop with tools for picture-perfect listings). These tools, along with eBay’s seller protections, have made the listing process hassle-free and made eBay our preferred selling platform. Finally, there are protections for you as a buyer, with tracking and a Money-Back Guarantee, so if the item received isn’t as described in the listing, you’ll get your money back.

If you’re about to clean out your wardrobe for spring, make sure you list those lightly worn pieces on eBay as you go. Check out the link to eBay’s website below to get started.

*eBay and eBay’s Authenticity Guarantee are not affiliated with or endorsed by any of the brands shown.