This Minimalist Closet Exhibit at the MET is Your Spring Cleaning Inspo

From body art to nail art to beauty product packaging, minimalism is the millennial go-to Instagram aesthetic. With warmer weather just around the corner, there’s no better time to de-clutter, simplify, and take the trend one step further. Instead of taking your spring cleaning inspo from the likes of Mariah Carey (does anyone really need 72 pairs of gold-coloured heels?), take a cue from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s latest exhibit, “Sara Berman’s Closet”.

Sara Berman (1920-2004) adopted the minimalist trend long before our favourite bloggers were pinning #closetgoals on Pinterest. After ending a 38-year marriage in 1982, the New York resident moved from a “well-to-do upper middle class home with many rooms and lots of possessions” to a studio apartment in Greenwich Village. Berman saw this new space as an opportunity to redefine her identity, and made the bold decision to wear only white and to tend to her belongings with “militaristic precision.”

She maintained a meticulously organized and modest closet, which in turn gave her a sense of freedom and independence. Berman’s daughter (Maira Kalman) and grandson (Alex Kalman) have curated the modest closet space into an exhibit at the MET. “If you put it in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” says Alex, “suddenly you’re saying to people: there’s something here that’s meaningful.”