Celebrity Stylist Olori Swank Teaches Us How To Master The Art Of A Successful Closet Purge
We are all guilty of keeping things that we need to let go. There's a comfortability with certain items that causes us to death grip them even though we have clearly outgrown them. For example, that bandage dress that's no longer flattering, or that white shirt that is more yellow these days - it's time to let it go, sis!
Summer will be knocking on our doors come June 21st, and it is our duties to be fully prepared with an effective wardrobe. You should feel joy and excitement to curate a look everyday. Take it from boss babe and celebrity stylist Olori Swank. Olori Swank told us, "Style is how you introduce yourself without opening your mouth. Make sure you're saying all the right things."
In order for you to say all the right things, you need unerring staples that will be indisputable.
Did you know that Olori Swank had dreams of being a doctor? Instead, she opted to heal hearts through fashion. From Teyana Taylor to Lance Gross, Swank is a hot commodity in the fashion industry, so she knows a thing or two about styling and closet purging. Being a serial entrepreneur has also taught her lessons on looking like money without spending too much of it. Swank told ESSENCE, "Being fashionable is really being able to express yourself with what you have. I know people who will spend $10,000 on a jacket and the jacket looks terrible because they didn't know how to put it together. And then you'll have a girl who went to Goodwill and spent $15 on her whole outfit and everyone is asking her where she got it from. There's no direct correlation between how much you spend and how fashionable you are."
We had a chance to chop it up with the blue haired beauty to learn tips and tricks for a successful closet purge. Here's the tea!
Where To Start
"The one thing is: any item you've not worn in nine months to a year. Nine times out of ten, if you haven't worn it in forever, it's a sign it needs to go. It may not fit well, the trend might be over, it may be damaged, or you may not like even like it; whatever the reason may be, it's time to get rid of it."
The Truth About "Goal" Items
"Many women see something in a store that they absolutely love but can't quite fit (yet). I do think having ONE goal item is your closet isn't going to kill you; however, if you find yourself in a situation where a lot of the items in your closet are 'goal' items, not only may it discourage you from dressing sharp everyday, it may also cause you to have the 'I have a closet full of clothes, and nothing to wear' syndrome. If you find yourself in this position, it's definitely time for a closet purge!"
The Key To A Successful Closet Purge
"Closet purges are very important! So important that I dedicate a whole section to them in my 101: TheBlueprint For A SWANK Life book. The proper way to purge your closet is to start with items you have not worn in nine months to a year and let them go. Next, let go of items that are too small or too big since nine times out of ten, you will not wear them because they don't fit. Don't fool yourself with the excuse, 'I'll grow into it' or, 'I'll lose weight for it.'
"Another question to ask yourself is, 'What's the likelihood I'll ever wear that item again?' A lot of us have items in our closet that we love; they are so memorable, unique, and distinctive but we are embarrassed to be caught wearing them twice. Unless it's an item that holds extreme sentimental value, like a wedding dress or a vintage sweater passed down from your grandmother, let it go. You should also get rid of any items that are damaged, or don't represent your current style of dress. If a zipper is broken or a button is missing, and you've been saying for the longest time that you were going to get it fixed, and you've yet to get it fixed, most likely you are not going to wear that item again. There's no need to leave it in your closet taking up space when it's not even in the best condition for you to pull out and put on if you feel like wearing it. Also ask yourself, if you were in the mall shopping right now and you were standing in front of this item, would you buy it? If the answer is 'no,' then it is time to let that item go. It's not uncommon for us to love something in the store, buy it, get home, never wear it and then not like it anymore.
"Don't let buyer's remorse be the reason you keep something in your closet especially when you don't intend to wear it. You can donate those items to a battered women's shelter and feel just as good about yourself as the day you bought it. Remember, one woman's 'yikes, I hate this,' is another woman's 'oh my God, I love this.' Lastly, ask yourself if you feel comfortable in an item. If the last time you wore that dress you broke out in hives in front of a dinner party of twenty people, the likelihood of you wearing that dress again, no matter how cute it is, is slim to none."
"One woman's 'Yikes, I hate this,' is another woman's 'Oh my God, I love this.'"
Everyday Closet Essentials
According to Olori, every woman should have these essential items in their wardrobe at all times:
- A black suit (comprised of black pants & a sharp blazer that they can either wear together or separately),
- A little black dress that makes her feel like a star in any room she walks in,
- A white collar dress shirt,
- A pair of jeans that fit her like a dream,
- A leather jacket,
- A pair of classic black pumps,
- A pair of nude pumps,
- A pair of ballet flats,
- A leather daytime bag,
- An evening clutch,
- And a great pair of sunglasses that suit her face.
The Golden Rule For Maintaining An Effective Wardrobe
"Buy only what you love and what you feel confident in. Don't feel pressured to follow every single trend. Invest in quality staple pieces that you can have for years, but don't spend too much money on trendier items you know won't last long in your wardrobe."
Want more stories like this? Check out these xoNecole related reads:
Host Kela Walker Gives Us Tips For A Bomb Work Wardrobe
Dress Layering Is A Thing & This Is How You Do It
30 Closet Staples Every Woman Should Own In Their Wardrobe
- 5 Steps That Make Closet Purging and Organizing Easier ›
- The Start-to-Finish Guide to Organizing Your Closet ›
- How to Purge and Organize Your Closet - California Closets ›
- SPRING CLOSET PURGE! Organizing a wardrobe that works FOR ... ›
- 7 Steps to a Successful Closet Purge | Real Simple ›
- A Day In the Life of Celebrity Stylist Olori Swank - YouTube ›
- Celebrity Stylist Olori Swank Opens Up About New Book and Advice ... ›
- 101 By Olori SWANK ›
- ESSENCE Network: Celebrity Stylist Olori Swank Shares Her ... ›
- Olori SWANK (@OloriSWANK) | Twitter ›
- Shop the latest on trend women's fashion online at SWANK blue ... ›
- Olori SWANK (@oloriswank) • Instagram photos and videos ›
- OloriSWANK.com ›
Joce Blake is a womanist who loves fashion, Beyonce and Hot Cheetos. The sophistiratchet enthusiast is based in Brooklyn, NY but has southern belle roots as she was born and raised in Memphis, TN. Keep up with her on Instagram @joce_blake and on Twitter @SaraJessicaBee.
Beyond Burnout: Nicole Walters' Blueprint For Achieving Career Success On Your Own Terms
Nicole Walters has always been known for two things: her ambition and her ability to recognize when life’s challenges can also double as an inspiring, lucrative brand.
This was first evident more than a decade ago when she quit her job as the corporate executive of a Fortune 500 company during a Periscope livestream. “I’m not sure if there’s an alignment of [our] future trajectory. I’m going to work for myself. I'm promoting myself to work for myself,” she said at the time before flashing a smile at the viewing audience. As she resigned on camera, a constant stream of encouraging messages floated upwards on the screen.
By 2021, she’d fashioned her work as a corporate consultant and her personal life with her husband and three adopted daughters into a reality show, She’s The Boss, for USA Network. This year, she released the New York Times bestselling memoir Nothing Is Missing, written as she was in the process of getting a divorce and dealing with her eldest daughter’s struggles with substance use.
Convinced that there’s no way the 39-year-old has achieved all of this without intentional strategic planning, I asked her about it when we spoke less than a week before Christmas. I’d seen videos on social media of her working on 2024 planning for other brands, and I wanted to know what that looked like following her own year of success.
She listed a number of goals, including ensuring that the projects she takes on in the new year align with her identity “as a Black woman, as an African woman, as a mother, as someone who has lived a [rebuilding] season and is now trying to live boldly and entirely as themselves.” But, I was shocked by how much of her business planning also prioritized rest.
Despite the bestselling book, a self-titled podcast, and working with numerous corporations, Walters said she’s been taking Fridays off. This year, she doesn’t want to work on Mondays, either.
“A lot of us think we work hard until retirement hits. I want to progress towards retirement,” she said, noting that she’ll check in with herself around March to see how successful this plan has been. The goal, Walters said, is to only be working on Tuesdays and Thursdays by sometime in 2025. “It is intentionally building out what I know I would like to have happen and not waiting for exhaustion to be the trigger of change.”
"A lot of us think we work hard until retirement hits. I want to progress towards retirement... It is intentionally building out what I know I would like to happen and not waiting for exhaustion to be the trigger of change."
Walters said the decision to progressively work less was partially in response to her previously held notions about her career, especially as an entrepreneur. “When I first started, I thought burnout was a part of it,” she said. “What I didn’t realize is that even if you’re able to bounce out of burnout or get back to it, there’s a cumulative impact on your body. If you think of your body as a tree and every time you go through burnout, you are taking a hack out of your trunk, yes, that trunk will heal over, and the tree will continue to grow, but it doesn't mean that you don’t have a weakened stem.”
But, the desire for increased rest was also in response to the major shifts that occurred three years ago when she was experiencing major changes in her family and realized her metaphorical tree was “bending all the way over.”
Courtesy
“One of the things we have to recognize, especially as Black women, is that there is this engrained, societal, systemic notion that our worth is built around our productivity,” she added. “That is some language that I think is just now starting to really get unpacked.” In recent years, there’s been an increased awareness of achieving balance in life, with Tricia Hersey’s “The Nap Ministry” gaining attention based on the idea that rest, especially for Black women, is a form of resistance. Even online phrases such as “soft life” and “quiet quitting” have hinted at a cultural shift in prioritizing leisure over professional ambition.
"One of the things we have to recognize, especially as Black women, is that there is this engrained, societal, systemic notion that our worth is built around our productivity."
If companies are lining up to consult with Walters about their brands and products, then women have been looking to her for guidance on starting over since she invited them to livestream her resignation 12 years ago. As viewers continue to demand more from content creators in the form of intimate, personal details, Walters has navigated her personal brand with a sense of transparency without oversharing the vulnerable details about her life, especially when it comes to her family.
The entrepreneur said she’d been approached to write a book for several years and was initially convinced she was finally ready to write one about business. “I started to do that, and then I went through my divorce. When that happened, I said, why would I write a book telling people to get the life that I have when I’m not sure about the life that I have,” she said.
Instead, she decided to write Nothing Is Missing and provide a closer look at her life, starting with being born to immigrant Ghanaian parents (“You need to know my childhood to know why I’m passionate about entrepreneurship.”) through the adoption of her three daughters and eventual divorce. Despite her desire to share, however, she said she felt protective of the privacy of her family, including her ex-husband.
When discussing this with me, Walters said she was reminded of a lesson she learned from actress Kerry Washington, who released her own memoir, Thicker Than Water, just a week before Walters’ book release. Washington’s memoir grapples with family secrets, too, specifically the fact that she was conceived using a sperm donor and didn’t learn about it until she was already a successful TV star. While Washington reflects on how the decision and subsequent deception impacted her, she’s also careful to hold space for her parents’ experiences, too. “A lot of things she said was that she had to recognize where she was the supporting character and where she was the main character,” Walter said.
This is something Walter worked to do in Nothing Is Missing when discussing her daughter’s struggles with addiction. “I was very intentional about making sure that I did not reveal more than what was required,” she said. “If I say something about someone’s addiction, I don’t need to go into the list of the substances they used, how they used them, what I found. [I don’t need to] walk into a room and paint a picture of what it looked like for people to understand.”
Walters said some of the most vulnerable moments in the book barely made a ripple once it was released. She was extremely nervous to write about getting an abortion, she said. But no one has asked her about this in the months since the book was released. Instead, people have been more interested in quirkier revelations, such as the fact that she once appeared on Wheel of Fortune.
“I have bared my soul about this thing I went through in my youth that has changed me for people, and people are like, ‘So how heavy was the wheel when you spun it?’” she said, chuckling. “It just goes to show that people never worry about the thing that you worry about.”
With the success of Nothing Is Missing, Walters said she still isn’t planning to release a business book at the moment. But, as she navigates parenting a teenager and two adult children while also navigating a relationship with her new fiancé, Walters said she believes she has at least one or two more books to write about her personal journey. “There is sort of an arc of where my life has gone that I know I’ve got something more to say about this that I think is important, relevant and necessary,” she said.
In just three years, Walters’ life has undergone a major transformation. There’s no telling what the next three years will have in store for her, but it seems likely she’ll retain an inspired audience wherever life takes her.
Let’s make things inbox official! Sign up for the xoNecole newsletter for daily love, wellness, career, and exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox.
Featured image courtesy
How To Handle The Ex Who Always Calls To Wish You A Happy Birthday
My ex-boyfriend calls me every year to wish me a happy birthday.
I can't remember a birthday that didn't include him since I was twelve. We've known each other since we were kids, and without fail, I know that a birthday will not pass without me hearing from him. In most years, he's been the first person I hear from, and at first, it was nostalgic and reminded me of when we were together.
He was always the first voice I heard on my birthday, and he had this Sagittarius way of making this Aries day feel like the national holiday they were always supposed to be, just like my dad always did; I still remember the first birthday present he ever bought me. It was a Ne-Yo CD, and I listened to it so much after he bought it that it wouldn't stop skipping.
We dated for five years, but we were young, so when we broke up, while it was difficult to adjust to the new normal, our continuing to keep in touch on birthdays made us feel connected in some way. It's become so normal that when I talk to my friends on my birthday, they'll ask, "Did _____ call you today?" And my response is always, "Yeah, he did."
Whether I was single, in a relationship, or dating a guy he could not stand, he was calling (and some years texting) no matter what.
Were there times when I 100% thought, is this healthy? Is he only calling so he can keep tabs on me? Should I be accepting calls and FaceTime from a man I'm no longer with on my favorite day of the year?
Absolutely.
When trying to decide if communicating with him was healthy at all, I went through a range of emotions and asked myself various questions: Do I want to still hear from him because it feels good to know he still cares? Is the need to hear from him rooted in ego, and if so, have I not done enough self-work? Would I be okay with dating a man who called his ex every year?
But none of the answers to those questions made my decision any more straightforward for me.
The truth is that I answer his birthday calls, and I wish him a happy birthday in return yearly because, on some level, we still love each other, and anyone who tells you they no longer love their ex is lying to you.
When you really love someone, you will always love them. Is love the same? Not always, but I think we look at love and connection as this black-and-white thing, and the truth is most relationships are complex. There was a time in my life when I looked at this man and felt all the romantic love in the world, and couldn't imagine a life without him in it as my partner.
I thought we'd get married, have babies, and that his hands were the safest place in the world for me and my heart to live in.
But as you age, you realize that love isn't enough and life isn't like the movies.
You can love someone who deeply loves you and still know that you don't need to be together. Now I look at him and love him so much that I want him to have the best life possible, even if that life doesn't include me, and I know he feels the same way. Our love has transitioned from a romantic love to a love that cheers for one another from the sidelines of our lives.
But does that mean that because I'm no longer in love with him, I don't want to hear from him on my birthday? No, because it still matters to me - he still matters to me.
Now, don't hold me to this as my final opinion on the situation because, in one, two, or ten years, I could be happily married and tell you that we haven't spoken to one another on our birthdays in years. But I could also tell you that even with a happy marriage, I still maintain a healthy relationship with my ex with boundaries. The truth is I don't know. Only time will tell.
What I can tell you is that as a Black woman navigating this world, often feeling like no one gives a damn about us, having someone who has loved me since I was a child continue to reach out to me on my favorite day in the year, doesn't feel like something wrong, it feels like the care that I deserve.
Not all exes are created equal, and not all couples who were once together hate each other. We went through a period where we couldn't stand one another, but we'd both tell you that that was due to resentment of things not working out.
Ex Etiquette: How To Handle an Ex That Calls or Texts You ‘Happy Birthday’
If you're open to maintaining communication with an ex, ask yourself these questions.
Delmaine Donson/Getty Images
Now, my ex isn't your ex, and I understand that there are men out there who will use your birthday as a way to find their way back into your life, heart, and bed with a text message. If you're still maintaining communication with your ex with boundaries, ask yourself the following questions.
1. Is this a person genuinely caring about me, or was this a relationship that brought out the worst in me?
It's imperative to ask this question because you don't ever need to hear from someone who broke you. Breaking up with someone is one thing, but continuing to keep in touch with a person who intentionally broke your spirit, heart, and self-esteem is never acceptable.
2. Why do I want to keep in touch? Is it because I want to get back together?
Keeping the lines of communication open with an ex in the hopes of rekindling the relationship can lead to heartbreak all over again. If the two of you have made a conscious choice to stay in touch with boundaries, you should know why that is, and if your goal is to reconcile, you need to make sure you're on the same page.
3. How do you feel about your ex as a person?
Is this a person that you'd have in your life if you never dated? Are they kind-hearted, genuine, and, overall, good people? These are questions that you should ask yourself because love can blind you, and you want to make sure that you're entertaining a person worth your time, even as a friend.
4. Is this relationship impacting my ability to find someone new?
While I'm all for healthy communication with an ex, you don't want to block new blessings by holding up entirely too much space in your life with an old partner. Make space for the new love that you deserve at all times.
Let’s make things inbox official! Sign up for the xoNecole newsletter for daily love, wellness, career, and exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox.
Featured image by PixelsEffect/Getty Images