You might not expect a lecture from an expert in tidying to be particularly engaging, but I am riveted.
My petite mentor beams: ‘The cosmetics will be your biggest challenge. You will put them all into one place, you will clean the storage, then you will work out which spark joy. And throw away the rest’
We survey my nine crates of make-up, not including two trunks of body products, a tub of hair wares, a great sack of nail varnish, and hundreds upon hundreds of perfume bottles.
Solemnly, my guru adds: ‘But, be careful not to hurt your back.’ At this, both of us collapse into giggles, envisaging me being crushed by a giant heap of beauty products.
My tidiness teacher is none other than Marie Kondo, the world’s most celebrated decluttering guru, and my tiny rented basement is the location for her first-ever British organising mission.
Marie Kondo has such cult status that when I tell people she’s coming, they express a jealousy that I have never before encountered. Think: cleaning Beatlemania.
For this quiet, unassuming 31-year-old from Tokyo has taken the world by storm with her ‘KonMari’ home sprucing method. Her first book, The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying, was a bestseller on five continents, selling five million copies, and gaining her a place on TIME Magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
In it, she encouraged readers to put everything they own in a pile, clasp each and every object, then keep only those that ‘spark joy’, booting out everything else after thanking it for its service.
In return, she promised that perfect, once-andfor-all tidying would lead to perfect, once-andfor-all happiness, in which true love and career fulfilment would follow — a sort of domestic mindfulness meets self-help.
Her new book, Spark Joy: An Illustrated Guide To The Art Of Tidying, expands upon her manifesto with elaborate, origami-like folding rituals. Such personal ‘tidying festivals’ can take months, while participants weep, rage and gnash their teeth over what to chuck out.
And yet the KonMari movement has bred an army of zealous acolytes, who refer to themselves as ‘Konverts’. Fans span the generations, from Hollywood actresses such as Jamie Lee Curtis and Kate Hudson to young YouTube star Zoella.
In the past few weeks, every woman I know appears to have posted a picture of a heap of random junk online, next to a boast that she had ‘KonMaried’ her home. ‘Next stop, I Kon-Mari my husband,’ wrote one.
Detoxing your home has become as fashionable as detoxing your body. All over the globe, you’ll meet KonMari evangelists who are living the dream in a state of minimalist, or, minimal-ish, purity.
Apart from me. For, in me, Marie Kondo may have met her match. I loved the book — right up until its author started talking about throwing away books, and there Ms Kondo and I parted ways. For, as Marie is a minimalist, so I am a maximalist.
My style of living might be described as ‘excess all areas’. Merely regarding my ‘small collection’ of 1,200 books (my ‘real collection’ being at my father’s house), I have ten shelves in my living room, two in the hall, seven in the bedroom (each row doubled up), books piled on every surface, and books stacked on w i n dowsills.
Reading is my ‘thing’, in the way that Marie’s thing is binning. The problem is that I also have a number of other ‘things’.
Specifically, there are my hundreds of perfume bottles, and those nine crates of cosmetics (including two of lipstick, even though I don’t wear lipstick).
I own four vast boxes of jewellery, 29 bras, 66 pairs of knickers, 43 bags and 73 scarves. Damn it, I even possess 19 capes.
There are 19 bottles of alcohol and several packets of cigarettes in my flat, which strikes many as odd, given that I no longer drink and have never smoked. Well, a girl needs something to give her (imaginary) guests.
I have 13 candles on the go, a penchant for antique crockery, and a fixation with collecting random bits of rock.
Amazon is my addiction, or, as my boyfriend charmingly describes it, ‘the source of a tidal wave of incoming sewage’.
But, then, he says this as a man forced to live out of a small hatbox when staying in my apartment, as there’s so little room for his possessions.
Marie believes that people need what she calls a personal power spot: part of their home that is filled with the items they crave.
My whole flat is my personal power spot, leaving no room for anyone else.
Don’t get me wrong: I adore throwing things away, and secretly, madly, already indulge in Marie’s practice of thanking existing objects, planting a kiss upon the most beloved.
My chaos is extremely ordered. And I truly love my stuff, as Marie insists upon. It’s just that I have a lot of love to give.
When Marie walks in, she is such a perfect, pretty little thing that I want to pick her up and spin her round. She has written that she can immediately judge a home, and I wait to hear mine condemned. Yet, despite my great glut of stuff, the verdict is resoundingly positive.
‘The flat has a good vibe,’ she tells me. ‘You love all the things that surround you, and I can feel that. In terms of tidying, your skill is quite advanced.’
I am ecstatic. My guru continues: ‘It’s about finding an equilibrium between you and your things; personal joy, balance,’ says Marie, who lives in Tokyo with her husband, who is now also her manager, and their six-month-old baby.
Inspired, we set about our task. The KonMari method starts with clothes, before proceeding to books, papers, ‘komono’ (miscellaneous wares such as gadgets and make-up), and sentimental items. Given that we have hours rather than weeks, we move fast. I ask if we can start with scarves. We pile all 73 of them onto the bed. I ask Marie how many she owns. Answer: five.
She asks me to touch each one and see which spark joy. I quickly come up with a top five.
‘You are very sensitive to how you feel,’ praises Marie.
Next, we have a go at the wardrobe proper, quickly eliminating depressing clothes, unwalkable-in shoes, and an overload of clutch bags.
The result is incredible. ‘It looks like a wardrobe in a film,’ I sigh. Lesson: less really is more when it means you can get at it.
I decide I am ready to ‘fess up to my hundreds of perfume bottles. Again, reducing my collection to five is a bit of a cinch. I put it down to Marie’s serene presence.
‘Let’s do some folding!’ I cry. Garments folded upright, rather than in messy heaps, is key to the Kon-Mari method. Marie makes it look easy, but for an oaf such as myself, folding proves challenging. Still, the result is utterly lovely.
Something deep and housewifely stirs within me when I behold the sweater drawer she puts together for me. Yes, I will do this for my 45 pairs of stockings and 79 pairs of socks if it’s the last thing I do.
My miniscule kitchen is a source of misery, with not a single drawer. Yet, Marie pronounces it ‘kawaii’, or cute, rhapsodising: ‘You have a beautiful lifestyle. Your shelves are tidy and you categorise well.’ My heart swells with pride. That said, we are able to dispense with clutter. My bathroom shelves are horrendous: how many halfopened facemasks does one woman need?
I quickly amass a great bin bag of rubbish. I still need to tackle the books and make-up, but my Kon-Mari taster has been 400,000 times easier and more liberating than I had anticipated. I’d expected teary exchanges and, possibly, a fist fight. Instead, I feel cleansed, calmed and committed to embarking upon the process for real.
It may not bring me career advancement, but, in terms of love, my boyfriend may be more likely to hang around if I can lay on a (KonMarie-d) drawer.
Marie found joy in my poky, overcrammed abode, and I found joy in her. I am left with a strong desire to hug tidying’s great icon and would rather like her as my new best friend. Marie’s got herself her first maximalist Konvert.
WHY YOU’VE BEEN FOLDING ALL YOUR CLOTHES WRONG
JUMPER
1. Fold one side towards the centre. 2. Fold the sleeve back 90 degrees. 3. Then fold it flush with the edge of the jumper. 4. Fold the other side the same way. 5. Fold the resulting rectangle almost but not quite in half. 6. Roll.
PAIR OF TROUSERS
1. Lay flat. 2. Fold in half. 3. If the crotch sticks out, fold it against the trouser legs. 4. Fold the legs in half towards the waistband. 5. Fold one third of the legs up. 6. Fold again making a neat square. 7. Store upright.
SKIRT
1. Lay flat. 2. Fold one half across. 3. Fold any excess material back to form a neat rectangle. 4. Fold each side together making one slim rectangle. 5. Fold almost in half, leaving a space between the belt and hem. 6. Roll.
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