Death of a Closet

My closet finally gave way last week. Sometime in the wee hours I heard a crash. With a few nearly impossible deadlines looming, extended family in for the holidays and days without decent rest, I was a bit tired. I needed to make sure I was down for the count with the aid of a few sleeping pillies. So when the crash of the closet came, I looked up, looked at my dog and put my head back down. I wasn’t getting out of bed. I told myself, surely the crash was the ice storm outside.

The husband next to me did not stir. Until the following morning when he saw the closet doors bulging. The rule I set in our home is no talking, no sudden movements and most certainly no loud noises until after the second cup of coffee. Which he respected, and then it came…

Apparently, I have too many clothes. I cannot believe that otherwise I would not have been holding my head in my hands wondering what to wear to Christmas parties this season. The bar that fell was beyond repair and the holes in either side of the walls were enormous, puffing out bits of plaster relieved of their responsibility to carry so much weight. There was no time to find a replacement. So my clothing sat on the floor and I could only ferret out a skirt and a sweater which I wore Christmas Eve and Christmas day and the next day until stores opened back up. The guilt I felt for my few pairs of shoes buried underneath the rubble unable to breathe was acute. And then I felt guilty about feeling guilty over shoes when there are so many unfortunate and real situations in life that I should feel guilty about. Everyone surely has one or two, three or even four pairs of shoes -- the kind that are so fabulous to the eye and cost beyond anything reasonable. The kind you simply cannot financially justify splurging on, but you do, contort your face and look away as you hand the credit card over to the sales clerk.

Stores opened back up and my thoughtful husband ventured out in the wet icy snow to find a 7’-0” long new pole. He came home to tell me there weren’t any. So I sent him off to purchase a hanging rack. A quarter of the width of my closet, I tripled up my clothing on hangers and hooked them on the rack. Uncovering my poor overly-expensive shoes below, I picked them up and cradled them (kidding, not really) before I set them gingerly aside on the floor. I also set several of my handbags on the rack above. Before nodding off that evening in a particularly pleasant haze that certain sleeping pills give me, I noticed the rack was leaning a bit. I was soon fast asleep. I had a lot of work to do the following day.

In the wee hours of the morning, I awoke yet again to my clothing rack crashing down on the bed – handbags flying, dresses, pants, skirts suffocating me. Husband didn’t stir. I’m the one on the pills.

I shoved everything back in the closet. The next morning, the husband said I have too many handbags. It was the weight of so many handbags that caused the rack to topple over. That simply is not true.

On my extensive “attempt to accomplish” list for 2009, I vow to get myself a new closet. I’ve changed the once “must” to “attempt” as the years pass, I find myself a bit more realistic. Although I crave any of the above closet designs, it simply isn’t in my budget. I have a modest reach-in closet and well, because of this recession there have been some cut backs. Hanging rods and cubby holes for shoes… that is all I need. In an ideal world, I would see a move into a much larger, brighter residence with an unlimited budget to convert an extra bedroom into a closet of my dreams (I haven't decided on a finish just yet...) But realism, unfortunately prevails.


Street in Elora, Ontario after an ice storm – photo taken sometime between 1900 and 1919 by John R. Connon (1862-1931) was a professional photographer and inventor of photographic equipment active in Elora, Ontario in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Closets by LA Closet Design

Consumption Conundrum: Ode to the Closet

The greatest secret of comfortable living is to keep everything about you in the right place.

I can’t seem to do that. Surely it isn’t difficult. But it is the excess. And who doesn’t have excess? It is so easy to accumulate and it collects so fast. Where do you put it all? Once you give it away, more seems to arrive. Excess clutters. People are coming over in five minutes! Dear god, what to do with the excess? Quickly… throw it in a closet.

Closets are not only a good place to hide excess, but they also offer a place for self-expression. What is worn in a moment of time is only a fleeting sign of expression. It is transitory. Something can be borrowed from a friend, it can bought then returned, it can be a guilty splurge or received as a great gift.

But an area stowing away an assortment of things and garments can reveal quite a bit about a person. Are the sweaters spun of soft cashmere? Any vintage handbags or a pair of fantastic heels for a stranger on the street to covet? A pair of jeans adorned by the BeDazzler, perhaps? Some of us can justify spending half a months salary on a handbag. Some of us can’t. Don’t judge a book by its cover? But we do. Some people – consciously or not – look at a person’s outfit or shoes or handbag and make some conclusions. Like it or not, clothing assigns what type of group we are in. What we fancy and what idiosyncrasies we have. Who we are is what we wear.

Most of us complain that our closets are too cluttered, too overstuffed, and lacking organization. Does this reflect who we are? Disorganized and dirty, or collected and catalogued. Or is it simply because most closets are too small and we have too much stuff. If I only had a large well-organized custom-made closet, then I could better run my life, I think to myself practically everyday.

Long before closets as we know today, there were small rooms adjoined to a bedroom or a library. These were very personal, small little rooms tucked away in the private more secretive areas of the house. These rooms had a variety of uses.

In the Middle Ages wealthy people would keep their valuables in it. Or use it as a study for learning. Maybe have a little quiet time for meditation or prayer.

During the Italian Renaissance, closets became quite a fad for the rich. They used these rooms for all sorts of reasons – even to display their growing collection of objects d'art, books and miniature exotic artifacts. It was a private sanctuary. Only men had these spaces, and these rooms were richly decorated.

Occasionally, if the closet was really special, it would be used for a Christening or a marriage ceremony.

In seventeenth-century England, the closet was the most significant room of an estate. Only very important people were allowed in the closet. It was where the most serious business was undertaken. It had to be magnificently decorated. Sometimes there was a secret backdoor to the closet along with a set of stairs. Not only could servants access the stairs, but it could also serve and an escape route, when needed.

The Queen’s closet at Ham House in Surrey was outfitted in full baroque splendor with red satin brocade and gold and striped silk for the extravagant Elizabeth Murray, Countess of Dysart.

Queen Catherine had her closet decorated with sky blue damask and gold lace. A nice soothing color to be surrounded by as her husband, King Charles II, was notorious for his perfidious ways. Sometimes when one has a really bad day and the house is full of people, there is no place to hide for a moment to collect one’s thoughts but the closet.

In France, dressing tables, tea tables and some comfortable seating were tucked away in the closet. Even daybeds, settees and an occasional fauteuils de commodité could be found. One of Louis XIV’s special lady friends, Louise de la Vallière, was said to have such a grand closet that she could comfortably seat up to 18 people. However, The Sun King’s second wife, Madame de Maintenon, topped her by accommodating 29 people in her private closet.

The decoration of these rooms allowed for a more personal and fanciful experimentation in decorating. It was a place for informal gatherings, secret liaisons and sometimes as a dressing room.

By the end of the eighteenth century, the closet became less secretive and more functional. Bedrooms were becoming more private. The acts of dining, meeting and sleeping were not carried out in the same room as before and the importance of the closet to wane. By the nineteenth century, the closet was almost obsolete.

Across the ocean, early American settlers used chests, trunks and wall-mounted pegs for storage. Closets, if they existed at all, were tiny. Pioneers had few material belongings to their name. With the Industrial Revolution came money. Wealth, most often, symbolized decadence. With the improvement of the printing press, books and magazines spread the latest French fashions to a mass audience. People with means had to have them. Clothing, shoes, linens and things were gathered ferociously. The closet provided a place for all that.

Consumerism grew and after World War II, and the walk -in closet was born.

Closets in the past were accessible, but not conspicuous. The items stored away in a closet were hidden behind a door in a bedroom room. Today, closets can be quite extravagant, many times a converted bedroom or even a showroom to itself complete with furnishings such as a comfortable chair, table, lamps and rug.

Many of us go into denial as to how much money we actually spend on clothing or a saucy new pair of heels. And most of us yearn to have a custom-made well-organized closet where we can throw open the doors, gently throw ourselves on a daybed, look up and give a little prideful sigh of our impulse purchases.

Our own little Cabinet de Curiosité … will the closet be the new stylish and welcoming space where people want to socialize.