The job of organizing wardrobes

Hanoi – Nearly a year into her job, Hong Anh still feels a headache and dizziness every time she stands in front of a customer's "wardrobe piled high like a mountain, on the verge of collapsing."

Last week, she completed an order for a female client in Ba Dinh district, earning 30 million VND and employing five staff members who worked continuously for four days.

This family has four members, but they possess a vast amount of clothing. The female head of the household alone owns 230 skirts, nearly 300 shirts, 150 pairs of trousers, over 100 thin sweaters, not to mention hundreds of dresses, jackets, suits, and workout clothes.

"It's literally a mountain of stuff. Someone outside the industry wouldn't know where to begin," said Hoang Hong Anh, 36, founder of a wardrobe organization service in Hanoi.

A portion of the customer's clothes in Ba Dinh district before being sorted by 5 employees of Hong Anh, each working 20 hours, from March 25-28. Photo: Tudo

"Having worked in a Japanese company for over 10 years, the kaizen (improvement) culture has become ingrained in me, so I often wonder what I can do to feel comfortable every time I open my wardrobe," Hong Anh said. When sharing with friends, she realized they had all experienced the frustration of having a closet overflowing with clothes but being unable to find an outfit they liked. The idea for a service to help organize wardrobes was born.

Last summer, she decided to leave her position as sales manager to realize her idea. Before starting her business, Hong Anh enrolled in an online professional organizer course offered by the International Association of Professions Career College (USA).

Professional organizers are individuals who make a living by helping others organize their lives, with many sub-specialties such as time management consulting, closet organization, and productivity expert. This profession emerged around the 1980s. According to Statista , the professional organizer market in the US was valued at approximately $10.3 billion in 2020, growing at 4.7% annually.

In the US, the salary for a closet organizer ranges from $42,000 to $55,000, while in the UK it's around £20,000-£24,000 per year. In Vietnam, this profession is relatively new, with only a few companies, mainly in Hanoi, offering rates ranging from 200,000 to 300,000 VND per hour.

Hong Anh is organizing a customer's wardrobe in Nam Tu Liem district, November 2023. Photo: Tudo

Lan Anh, a mother of three, has only been doing this job for a little over a month, but feels like it was made for her. "I saw the job posting at the beginning of this year, found it interesting, so I applied right away," said the 36-year-old woman, who used to own a homestay in Dong Da district.

Lan Anh's experience, aesthetic sense, and life skills helped her adapt to the job in less than a month. This profession requires dexterity, meticulousness, enthusiasm, a certain understanding of fashion and materials, and especially the ability to communicate with high-end clients. "After 20 days of work, I was promoted to shift supervisor," Lan Anh said.

Naturally inclined towards organizing and frequently following minimalist experts and methods like Marie Kondo, Lan Anh admits that only professional organizers have developed a systematic approach. For example, previously she simply arranged items neatly, but now she categorizes them by color and type, folding them in a way that makes them easy to distinguish and prevents them from shifting. Before, she just hung her clothes on hangers, but now she finds it much more aesthetically pleasing to use all the same type of hook.

"I learned how to organize items horizontally and vertically. In the horizontal row, less frequently used items and out-of-season items are placed at the top. In the vertical row, like tops, bottoms, and bottoms, it's convenient for customers to see the items they want to mix and match as soon as they open the wardrobe," Lan Anh shared.

Last weekend, her team worked for a client in a residential area on Pham Van Dong Street (Cau Giay District). The family consisted of three members; they didn't have a lot of belongings, but their clothes were all mixed up and wrinkled. They complained about not having enough closet space.

However, after sorting and rearranging all the items, three drawers were left over. The customers were very pleased, saying that the team had performed a "revolution" in their family's wardrobe.

"The greatest joy in this job is the feeling of satisfaction when I see the results of my work. It's the beautiful wardrobe, the compliments from customers, and knowing that I'm helping those around me have a better quality of life," she said.

Many customers have recovered valuable items they had left behind, earned money by selling off excess belongings, and benefited from this experience, which helped to regulate shopping behavior.

Ms. Thanh Hue, 43 years old, residing in Hai Ba Trung district, who hired a closet cleaning service in September 2023, said, "Even living in luxury can be a nightmare." For 5 million VND, her family had their closets cleaned, clothes folded, sorted, and ironed neatly for all four family members.

"After I finished, my wardrobe looked like something a fashionista would wear. Thanks to that, my closet has stayed tidy for at least six months," said Ms. Hue.

A customer's locker in Long Bien district was restructured by Hong Anh's team in February 2024. Photo: Tudo.

The profession of organizational specialist is relatively new, and misunderstandings are inevitable. Hong Anh says that many clients still think of her business as a domestic helper company. "We are not domestic helpers. We are people who bring organization and tidiness to families' living spaces," she says.

In the early days of the service, a female customer from Thanh Xuan district approached Hong Anh with the desire to restructure her wardrobe before buying more. After giving birth and staying at home for almost a year, this 30-year-old woman hadn't bought a single new outfit.

As soon as she looked at Hoa's family wardrobe, Hong Anh immediately realized that her relationship with her husband was unbalanced. The husband's clothes took up two-thirds of the wardrobe, one door was occupied by their son, and the wife's clothes were in the bottom drawer and the top drawer.

"It was then that she confided in me that her husband criticized her for dressing sloppily, saying that going out with her made him lose face," Hong Anh recounted.

The organizing expert spoke with Hoa's husband about restructuring the wardrobe. Due to the wife's limited height and her busy schedule caring for the children and doing housework, items were prioritized for convenient, easily accessible locations. Stylists also helped Hoa buy a few new, suitable items. Since then, Hoa has been very cooperative with Hong Anh in maintaining the neat and tidy wardrobe as it was when it was first organized, as well as with each new purchase.

"After three months, she became more confident in her sense of style, and as a result, her position in the marital relationship became more balanced," Hong Anh said.

Although the value of this order wasn't large, it helped Hong Anh see the true meaning of her work. "In a way, our work isn't just about transforming wardrobes, it's about changing people," she said.

Phan Duong

Source: https://vnexpress.net/nghe-don-tu-quan-ao-4728546.html