El rincón de Vanessa

Learn to fold like a ninja to save closet space & pack a suitcase in seconds!

If it takes you more than a few seconds to find the right outfit in the morning and you're struggling to fit everything in to an over-crammed closet, then learning the best techniques to fold your clothes in the perfect way to save space, save time and save your sanity. Let's pretend we live in a designer store and get those clothes in order!

Tom's picked up the organzing bug recently, so I offered to help out and show him the best techniques for folding clothes. Luckily I don't have to fold my clothes very often, as I only wear dresses, but I've picked up some tricks along the way from my obsession with home organizing books and Anthea Turner's Perfect Housewife TV show.

In less than an hour, his cupboard resembled the shelves of a Uniqlo store, with colour-coded piles stashed neatly on labelled shelves. I scribbled down diagrams for each of the techniques, so we could print them out and stick them in the cupboard, to be referred to at any time.

1. T-Shirts

We used the Japanese folding technique for the t-shirts, which left us with a neat little pile we arranged by colour.

1. Pinch the top of the t-shirt, near the collar, with one hand and pinch the middle of t-shirt inline with the collar with your other hand.
2. Cross your first hand over the middle one and pinch the collar together with the bottom of the t-shirt.
3. Pick up the t-shirt and fold it inside out.
4. Set the t-shirt down, folding the remaining sleeve underneath as you lay it down, so that you're left with a neat little square with just the collar of the t-shirt facing up.

2. Hoodies & Jumpers

We folded the hoodies in to neat little square bundles which were easy to stack.

1. Lay the hoodie flat and fold the left hand side over so that it meets the zip, just below the collar.
2. Fold the sleeve back and lay it downward, folding the cuff up if it's longer than the bottom.
3. Repeat the previous two steps with the right hand side of the hoodie.
4. Now fold the hood down (if it has one).
5. Fold the hoodie down and in half so that you're left with a neat square.

3. Underwear

Underwear is an easy one! This technique will leave you with tiny little rectangles which fit neatly in to a drawer or suitcase. You can even make one of my drawer organizer boxes to keep them in.

1. Lay your underwear flat and fold the left hand side in to the middle by one third.
2. Fold the right hand side in to the middle, in the same way.
3. Fold the bottom of the underwear up by a third.
4. Fold the bottom up again and you're left with a rectangle.

4. Jeans & Trousers

We were worried there wasn't enough room to store all of Tom's jeans but this technique worked a treat.

1. Lay the jeans flat and fold the left leg over the right.
2. Fold the jeans up from the bottom by one third.
3. Fold up the bottom of the jeans again to make a neat square.
4. Flip them over and they're ready to stack with the pockets facing up.
   
   
   Ready to give it a go? Here's my sheet which you can print out and stick in your own closet: