How to Store Summer Clothes for Winter

The autumn is in full swing, we see the nicest earthy colours around us, with red and yellow trees, amazing pink skies at sunsets and candle lights at home. Now is the time to say goodbye to our summer wardrobe for about 6 months, but before we do it, let’s go through the most important tips on how to prepare your clothes for their winter sleep.

The first step to ensure the freshness of your clothes for next year is, as we did when we packed away our winter stuff, to wash and clean them before putting them away. Bacteria grow quicker on worn textiles and if there is a very slight stain, after several months this stain will turn into a bigger one that is much harder to get rid of. Also, the smell attracts moths and these are absolutely unwelcome guests in our wardrobes. It is not that easy to wash everything at once, as different materials require different care, like silk vs linen. 

So let’s check all our pockets for tissues. If you are lucky you’ll find some old coins, which is always a great surprise, or this beloved lipstick of yours that you couldn’t find anywhere. 

After the wash of your clothes, it’s time to sort them into items that can be hung up and those that need to be folded for storage. Cotton and linen items wrinkle less if you roll them instead of folding them, but both folding and hanging is absolutely fine . Silk items should be hung up on coat hangers, and so should be all the blazers and jackets, to keep their shape.

Ready to pack away your bathing suits? A thorough wash to get rid of all the sea salt and/or chlorine is important, but for womens’ and childrens’ suits it is always better to wash them by hand instead of the washing machine. The wash in the machine is often too harsh and contributes to miss-shaping the beautiful bathing suits. Air dry them flat and make certain that your suits are really really dry before putting them into storage, because of the danger of mould. 

Often people use plastic bags or boxes to store your attire or use a vacuum bag to save storage space. However, plastic stops your clothes from breathing and vacuum bags cause creases that are hard to get rid of, especially from delicate materials. The best thing is to store your clothes in a wardrobe and chest of drawers away from light and moisture.

Wherever your wardrobe is, make sure it is in a dry room.

For some nice smell and freshness we recommend placing a bar of lavender or cedar-wood soap or a small cotton bag with dried lavender into your wardrobe and chest of drawers - et voilà, your beloved items are ready for winter.

Last but not least - your summer shoes

For leather shoes: Wipe them with a damp cloth inside and outside and apply some moisturising cream for them not to dry out. Put some shoe trees in, for slippers you can find shoe trees without the spring.