I always see insanely organized pictures like the closet above, which is lovely. But I have to ask - who NEEDS that many pairs of dress slacks in virtually the same color? Seriously!

@Speakabooboo: Agreed. I see closets like that and I assume that the owner is fictional and/or has some pretty serious OCD. They do look pretty, though.

Right? It's like Hoarders and OCD had a baby.

Looks like what ya really need to have a good looking closet is 400 matching slacks and 300 almost identical shirts. Just imagine that purse hanger in the closet with all the slacks or a tiered hanger. Instant crammed up.

Just by the by- you don't really need the wonder hanger if you have those slim-line hangers because they have a little hook on the front side so that you can hang more than one thing- like a little all-in-one wonder hanger.

The concept absolutely drives me up the wall ~ it's just chaos. Put some closet doors!!

I would have no problem keeping my clothes organized if I had as much space as the closet in that picture.

Now give us some ideas for organizing a standard 60's bungalow closet so that enough clothes for 2 people can fit.

Wow, I work in a clothing store and I also have an entire wardrobe for performing music - and I still don't have half that many clothes.

I've had two relationships back to back, and had to share a closet with both of them. They are complete opposites regarding tidiness and organization. There's no cookie-cutter way of just saying, "buy these hangers and they'll fix every problem" or "don't buy wooden hangers"; that alone would never cover it. But here's what I did in each case:

1st relationship: Messy, care-free, unorganized, a little lazy, and would let clothes pile over by the dryer if I didn't put them up.
Therapy:

For things that I didn't care if they got wrinkled: Bins. I bought three big bins, one for towels, one for underwear and one for socks (which I had to throw away all the old different color/design socks and get the exact same pairs, so I wouldn't have to spend any time matching them, balling them, and separating them). As soon as they came out of the dryer, easy toss in the bin. Even he could manage it!

2nd relationship: OCD, pack-rat, too-organized, but lazy. Lets clothes pile up all over the floor (and sometimes the bed) after he's worn them, and then gets angry 'cause he runs out of clothes.
Therapy:

Real-time status updates. It's a lot easier to see when you're about to run out of clothes if you can see it happening. I placed all work clothes on one side of the closet; got rid of ANYTHING that wasn't immediately wearable and it either went to donations or the "going out" side of the closet. Since the work-clothes side is less crowded, the clothes stay ironed, on sight, and there's zero guess-time in the morning. I kept the all-socks equal rule, 'cept there's now a pile of dress socks and another of athletic socks, and instead of bins, they've a drawer on a credenza. Towels, bed linens, t-shirts and jeans still need to be folded, but he's OCD enough to where he does all these himself. The only thing we didn't know what to do with was shorts; 'cause they take up too much space if folded as pants, don't warrant pant-hangers, and are too many to stick in a drawer. So I folded them in half, rolled them up, and stacked them barrel-style on shelves all the way to the ceiling. Since it's a sturdy fold, they don't come apart each time we take one pair (which can happen with pants), and you see a lot of the fabric, as well as wether it's cargo-shorts or not, and now they're available and tidy, yet out of the way.

"Small space solutions": The first solution seems to be: "Just have a giant space instead of a small one."

I don't care if it IS a mock-up photo for a closet supply company that sells to the Donald Trumps of the world, that photograph is lead immoral. Once you have half that many clothes, if you feel like you need to buy more, you need to examine your values.

Picking up on the thread of the comment about tiny bungalow closets: It might be helpful to think about why such closets were acceptable, back in the day. Remember how Ethel Mertz kept wearing that same dress over and over on "I Love Lucy"? She probably only HAD five dresses, and she made them last. Tiny closets used to be all anyone needed.

I've bought a lot of clothes in my life, because I could, because it was fun, because there are a lot of nice clothes out there, because I had this idea that I needed to entertain people via my wardrobe. But about five years ago, I just stopped buying new things, stopped replacing things that wore out, and it's been such a relief. I wish the idea would catch on that it's not a faux pas to wear the same thing over and over. I HATE that pop culture thinks it's a gotcha when a Hollywood star or Michelle Obama is caught repeating an outfit.

fake, fake, 's all fake

Actually those real simple hangers are kind of annoying because they take up just as much if not more than regular hangers b/c of that hook, and hanging things vertically isn't always an option if you have things such as shoe racks on the bottom of your closet.

This photo is likely fake/staged... but people like this do exist.

My father, for example, has a closet that looks almost exactly like this one! And yes, he has a million dress shirts and slacks. He also has legitimate obsessive compulsive disorder.

You should see his pantry!

You only need one thing to create an organized open closet: doors. Seriously, there's no way an open closet can look good. Curtains, doors, whatever hides the stuff.

And I agree with all the comments above that none of the featured closet seem real.