A scroll through TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest would have you believe that we live in a time of peak organisation.
The decanting of cereals, the stacking of juice boxes, pantry and wardrobe edits galore – whether you’re maximising your vertical space or categorising, curating and decluttering, the social media messaging is "clear shelves, clear mind".
Organisation has always had its fans – Tupperware, for example, has been around since 1946 – but as with many things in our modern age, we have the Kardashians, specifically Khloe and her perfectly stacked Oreo cookie jars, to thank for making home edits mainstream. The curated cookie jar is the shiny, happy face of organisation. The lovingly arranged kitchen countertop glass jars represent the you that you want the world to think you are: organised, ordered and on top of things.
But organisation has a dark side. An evil twin lurking in the bedroom.
Enter the clothes chair.
You know the one. Skulking in the corner, barely visible beneath a pile of clothes. At the bottom are clothes, which may not even be in fashion anymore. And on top, the hastily thrown T-shirt or pair of trousers which aren’t quite yet washing basket ready, alongside the bits of laundry you didn’t get round to putting away.
Of course, it needn’t be a chair. A quick, non-scientific poll of my friends at dinner last week revealed the existence of a clothes treadmill, a clothes cross-trainer and a clothes power plate. Mine is a valet stand, which I like to think makes my clutter area sound a little bit posher.
So, is the clothes chair a sign of a disordered, slovenly mind, or does it play a vital role in maintaining the delicate balance in the wardrobe-to-laundry eco-system?
“A laundry chair, or indeed any other piece of bedroom furniture like a sofa, small table, top of your chest of drawers, is often used as a holding area for wardrobe favourites that you’ve worn but aren’t quite dirty enough for the washing machine or that are clean and you plan to put away,” says Shelina Jokhiya, owner of home and office organising company, Declutterme.
Far from being a moral failing, the clothes chair serves an important function. From an organisational perspective, it can help figure out which clothes you wear more often by the frequency of their appearance. With regards to clothing care, it helps prevent over-washing.
But, there are rules.
“Things like gym clothes are obviously to be washed immediately, but items that are more formal and have more structure, such as jeans or a blazer, you can wear five to 10 times without washing," says Lucy Wildman, a stylist in Dubai who has worked with the likes of Nicole Scherzinger, Carly Rae Jepsen, Huda Kattan and Mohamed Ramadan.
Jokhiya adds: “If you wear these clothes regularly and use your laundry chair in a deliberate, organised way, it can be useful to grab the things you’ll be re-wearing again shortly, instead of putting them back into the closet.”
It’s useful to think of the clothes chair as a staging area or a visual to-do list as opposed to a fabric mountain of shame, but there are smarter alternatives.
“I have an easily accessible space in my bathroom drawer for my loungewear and nightwear that I will re-wear the next day,” says Jokhiya. “It’s folded neatly and hidden away. Have a space, drawer or nook for these types of items. For any other items, put them back in the closet or in the laundry. If you have a shirt you have worn once and want to re-wear, hang it on one side of the closet with other items you have worn once and will re-wear again within the same week.”
Wildman adds: “When organising my clients’ wardrobes, I suggest a small clothes rail in the bedroom or dressing room which looks more aesthetically pleasing than a clothes chair, especially if you buy nice hangers. If you keep a piece there for a week, you start to realise the things you wear more often than not and if you need to clean them, making it a great way to edit your wardrobe.”
Indeed, proper hanging might be the key to combating the shame of the clothes chair, by introducing strategic wrinkle-preventing draping as opposed to items that are hurled from the other side of the room to lay where they land.
Whatever your approach, the versatility of the clothes chair crosses cultures and continents, and you are not alone or lazy in having one.
“Give yourself a break. Have it if it works for you," says Jokhiya.
