The overstuffed closet may be overripe as a metaphor, but it's a thriving business niche, filled by individuals like Estes, who commutes between Los Angeles and New York, and by companies like Cross It Off Your List, whose president, Linda Rothschild, is the director of the National Association of Professional Organizers, with 1,300 members. There is some evidence that a clean closet may be the gift that keeps on giving. Last year Ikea, the Swedish home-furnishings retailer, polled Canadian customers, and 31 percent said they felt more satisfied after organizing their closets than after having sex. In any case, I wanted Estes, the closet editor, and I wanted her bad. She came recommended by an art critic whose clothes seem as well-chosen as the insights in her reviews.
Women clean closets in pairs.
This is not news. So it is much less awkward than you might think to repair to your bedroom with a total stranger and start dragging things off hangers and on and off your own body. Estes is 5 foot 10, though she stood more than 6 feet in her cloven-toed Martin Margiela boots and therefore was uniquely suited to closet work. Two pairs of black trousers and one pair of khakis from Ann Taylor. Ten white men's button-down shirts.