Cuniform's Step-by-Step Closet Transformation Process - Coveteur: Inside Closets, Fashion, Beauty, Health, and Travel

Before: This was my wardrobe pre-Cuniform, with everything long like dresses, pants, and jumpsuits. The fact that it wasn’t cram-packed made me confident there would really be nothing to get rid of. This, I would learn, was not the right logic.
Before: This this was my closet full of tops pre-Cuniform. To start the process, Tran and Winger have you go to another room or run an errand while they do their big dig through your entire wardrobe. I left my apartment to go work from a café down the street.
Upon returning, I found Tran and Winger made two big piles on my bed: one of clothes they “strongly suggested editing out,” and another of “we need to see.” First, I checked the strong nos to make sure there wasn’t something I would die without—there really wasn’t—and that pile was immediately put away into bags before I had a moment to second-guess any of it.
The next step was to try on all the maybes. Tran and Winger would either decide it looked good enough to keep, suggest an alteration, or pointedly explain why the pattern/cut/fabric just really wasn’t flattering on me. The three above—a Marc by Marc Jacobs (RIP) dress, a hippie blouse from my mom, and a vintage dress I found in Amsterdam—were just a few of the fatalities from the maybe pile. Truthfully, Tran and Winger are probably the only people who would ever really tell me, “That just doesn’t look good on you.” My really beloved things (like my mom’s top) were allowed to go into a limited archive of keepsakes that I had to promise would be stored away “and not something you actually see as an option in your closet every day,” said Winger.
It was becoming clear that my abundance of quirky vintage clothes has run their course. Apparently, I’m not Zooey Deschanel. That included this, yes, polyester sailor dress (but so cute!), which I was promised could be replaced in the form of a more grown-up skirt and polo outfit they had in mind. You can see that later on in this story.
At this point, I felt the need to defend at least one seemingly ill-advised item. “What about when I need, like, a solid pair of hooker shoes?” I asked about the pair on the left, trying to explain why platform stilettos come in handy for, say, a bachelorette party. Winger replied calmly: “Yes, but you can look like the Met Ball version or the [the opposite] version.” In other words, the Givenchy heels on the right would do the job when needed—the platforms had to go. Sigh, it was so true.
Some of the clothes in my closet that I never wore had a really obvious solution: alteration. This pair of vintage sailor pants fit me like a glove, but were so long I always had to wear them with heels (which I rarely do). That meant they went unworn 363 days out of the year. Why it never occurred to me to crop them into cute wide-leg, ankle-length trousers, I don’t know, but I’m glad Tran and Winger safety-pinned them exactly where I should have them hemmed, because I now wear them constantly.
Also in the maybe pile was a pair of navy pants I adored, and I couldn’t begin to see what the problem would be until Winger said the words: “Hip jewelry.” As in, these cute gold buttons (again with the sailor stuff—what’s wrong with me?) were a little much. Instead, they had me go out and get navy buttons that blend with the fabric and tone down the whole effect.
After: With a lot of items gone, Tran and Winger reorganized my wardrobe with matching hangers and staged my heels *just so.* The impeccable spacing also goes a long way, no? But, added Tran: “I recommend you don’t buy anything new unless you can think of three exact ways you’re going to wear it.”
After: Again, matching hangers go a long way to looking like you have an adult wardrobe, I must say. Another trick they employ is to organize your clothing from left to right by lightest item to heaviest. A rainbow-ordered closet can look cute, but the more functional M.O. is from tank top to sweater.
Then, we started making outfits. Do you know what cross-tucking is? If you leave the bottom few buttons of your blouse unbuttoned, you criss-cross the bottom of your top as you tuck it in and it gives it a whole different drape. That’s what they did here with my favorite Carven blouse as they tucked it into a pair of consignment 3.1 Phillip Lim silk pants they brought for me. The velvet block heels are from M. Gemi and a pair I wear to death already.
What I love about this combination is it’s mostly things I already owned. The 3.1 Phillip Lim blazer had sat in my closet for about five years and was never worn; the vintage t-shirt belonged to my mom, but I never considered wearing it inside-out; the All Year Round pants were a new pair the Cuniform team brought to the appointment for me; and the Vince shoes, well, I wear those all the time. My Sophie Hulme bag, I do love, but most days I'm usually hauling a giant tote, to be fair.
That vintage polyester sailor girl dress with which I had to part was reincarnated with this vintage Lacoste polo (that I honestly used to wear to bed), tucked into a Banana Republic pencil skirt that hadn’t seen the light of day in two years, and then the team topped it off with this Vince black cardigan they consigned to me and cleverly tied around my waist sideways so it looked a little more interesting. The heels are an old pair of Marc by Marc Jacobs that I wore a ton a few summers ago—Tran and Winger revived their purpose.
This is when the wine came out: It was time to shoot the Wardrobe Rolodex for my phone. Once we had assembled a strong lineup of tops, bottoms, dresses, and shoes, Tran and Winger mixed and matched in every possible combination, noting to which occasions each was meant to be worn. Together we made more than 50 outfits for everything from corporate work luncheon to lazy weekend brunch get-up, but the whole point, said Tran: “They should all look like the same person.”
Winger is a stylist and has worked in fashion since he went into retail right out of high school. My favorite thing I learned from him? There were a few items he kindly referred to as too “GMC,” which, he explained, is an acronym for “General Mall Clothing.” For example, drapey tops that really have no reason to be so drapey. And, you know, he’s not wrong.
Tran has an MFA and has worked as an educator, editorial stylist, buying assistant, store director, and personal stylist. The thing she said that really stuck with me the most: “When you’re getting dressed to run errands on the weekend and someone from work spots you, they shouldn’t be wondering: Is that really Katie?” As in, this 32-year-old should feel like herself even when she’s hungover in line at Whole Foods on a Sunday afternoon. In fact, in the end, maybe that’s the real definition of style.

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