Hanoi After nearly a year in the profession, every time she stands in front of a customer's "mountainous wardrobe, ready to collapse", Hong Anh still feels a headache and dizziness.
Last week, she completed an order for a female customer in Ba Dinh district with a salary of 30 million VND and 5 employees working continuously for four days.
This family has four members but a huge amount of clothes. The female owner alone has 230 skirts, nearly 300 shirts, 150 pairs of trousers, more than 100 thin sweaters, not to mention hundreds of dresses, coats, suits, and gym clothes.
"It's a veritable mountain of stuff. Outsiders wouldn't know where to start," said Hoang Hong Anh, 36, founder of a wardrobe organization service in Hanoi.
Part of the customer's clothes in Ba Dinh district before being sorted by 5 Hong Anh employees, each working for 20 hours, from March 25-28. Photo: Tudo
"After more than 10 years working in a Japanese company, the kaizen (improvement) culture permeates me, so I often wonder what I should do to feel comfortable every time I open my closet," Hong Anh said. When sharing with her friends, she realized that they all felt frustrated with their closets being full of clothes but not being able to find the right outfit when they wanted to. The idea of a service to help organize their closets was born.
Last summer, she decided to quit her job as a sales manager to make her idea a reality. Before starting her business, Hong Anh enrolled in an online professional organizer course from the International Association of Professions Career College (USA).
Professional organizers are people who make a living helping others organize their lives, with many sub-niches including time management consultants, closet organizers, and productivity experts. This profession was born around the 1980s. According to Statista , the professional organizer market in the United States was valued at around $10.3 billion in 2020, growing at 4.7% per year.
In the US, the salary for a wardrobe arranger ranges from $42,000 to $55,000, in the UK it is around £20,000-24,000 per year. In Vietnam, this industry is still new, with a few units mainly in Hanoi, with fees ranging from 200,000-300,000 VND per hour.
Hong Anh is arranging 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 and was interested so I applied right away," said the 36-year-old woman, who used to be a homestay owner in Dong Da district.
Experience, aesthetics and life skills helped Lan Anh get into the swing of things in less than a month. This job requires dexterity, meticulousness, enthusiasm, a certain understanding of fashion , materials and especially communication skills with high-end customers. "After 20 days of working, I was promoted to shift leader," Lan Anh said.
Although she loves to organize and often follows minimalist experts or Marie Kondo's method, Lan Anh admits that only after being trained as a professional organizer can she have a systematic method. For example, before she just arranged her clothes neatly, now she divides them by color, by type, folds them so they are easy to distinguish and do not shift. Before she just hung them up, now hanging them on the same type of hook is much more aesthetic.
"I learned the method of arranging horizontally and vertically. In the horizontal row, less used and off-season items are placed on the highest level. In the vertical row, such as above shirts, below skirts and pants, it is convenient for customers to open the closet and immediately see the items they want to mix and match," Lan Anh shared.
Last weekend, her team worked for a customer in an urban area on Pham Van Dong Street (Cau Giay District). The family had three members, not much luggage, but the clothes were all mixed up and wrinkled. They complained that they had no closet to store their clothes.
However, after sorting and rearranging all the items, there were three extra drawers. The customer was very satisfied and said that the team had made a "revolution" for their family's wardrobe.
"The happiest part of this job is the satisfaction of seeing the results of my work. It's a beautiful wardrobe, compliments from customers, and knowing that I'm helping people around me have a better quality of life," she said.
Many customers find lost treasures, make money by selling off items, and help adjust shopping behavior.
Ms. Thanh Hue, 43 years old, in Hai Ba Trung district, hired a closet cleaning service in September 2023 and said "living in luxury is also a nightmare". For 5 million VND, her family had their closets cleaned, clothes folded, sorted and neatly ironed for all four members.
"After finishing, my closet looks like a fashionista's. Thanks to that, my closet stays neat for at least 6 months," said Ms. Hue.
A customer's wardrobe in Long Bien district was restructured by Hong Anh's team, February 2024. Photo: Tudo
The profession of organizing expert is still new, so it is inevitable that there will be misunderstandings. Hong Anh said that many customers still think of her business as a domestic help company. "We are not domestic helpers. We are the ones who bring science and tidiness to the living space of families," she said.
In the first days of opening the service, a female customer in Thanh Xuan district came to Hong Anh with the desire to restructure her wardrobe before buying more. After giving birth and staying at home for nearly a year, this 30-year-old woman had not bought any more clothes.
As soon as she looked at the Hoa family wardrobe, Hong Anh realized that her husband and wife relationship was out of balance. The husband's clothes took up 2/3 of the wardrobe, the remaining door belonged to their son, and the wife's clothes were in the bottom drawer and the top drawer.
"At that time, she confided that her husband criticized her for dressing sloppily and making him lose face when going out," Hong Anh said.
This organizing expert talked to Hoa's husband about restructuring the wardrobe. Because his wife is short, busy with taking care of children and doing housework, she prioritized placing it in convenient, easy-to-reach locations. The stylist also helped Hoa buy some new, suitable items. Since then, Hoa has been very willing to interact with Hong Anh to maintain the wardrobe as neat and beautiful as when it was first organized, as well as every time she buys new clothes.
"After three months, she became confident in her dress sense, and from there her position in the relationship between husband and wife became more balanced," said Hong Anh.
Although the value of this order is not large, it helps Hong Anh see the true meaning of her job. "From a certain perspective, our work not only changes wardrobes, but also changes people," she said.
Phan Duong
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