Before we start our wardrobe detox, here is what you will need:

Grim determination
Some binbags
Pieces of Paper and a marker pen
A ruthless streak
At least a day
A responsible adult to take you for a drink afterwards

I imagine the wardrobes of most fashion journalists to be like little buddhist temples of zen, all colour-coordinated and left-to-right aligned. Not mine. Mine is like a cobra that has swallowed a goat.

I realized I had to do something about it when I saw my boyfriend carefully storing his clean clothes in a carrier bag hanging from the bedroom door handle. So I spoke to some experts in the field about how and where to start.

Elika Gibbs is founder of Practical Princess, wardrobe de-cluttering service to the likes of Kate Moss. Gibbs is well versed in persuading women to part with all the tat they’ve been hoarding, even if, for her usual clients, that tat is vintage Yves Saint Laurent rather than, as in my case, ten-year-old Topshop.

‘Don’t get it all out in one go,’ she says, which is good because my flat is tiny (although with magical Mary Poppins expansive capacity, clearly). ‘Instead, break it into chunks and have realistic expectations. Go through things in sections – I always say start with dresses, as they're easier to try on and are less daunting.’

Gibbs also recommends a ‘six-pile process’, sifting pieces into ‘keep’, ‘archive’ (for pieces you don’t wear but don’t want to part with), ‘maybe’, ‘edit’ (as in ‘edit OUT’), ‘dry cleaning and alterations’, and ‘seasonal changeover’.

Given that I don’t have space for an archive and I wear black all through summer too, I developed my own three-pile strategy: ‘keep’, ‘edit’ (things I couldn’t make a quick decision on) and ‘chuck’ (destined for the charity shop).

I disobeyed Gibbs by getting EVERYTHING out and throwing it on my bed in a big pile. It felt a bit like Extreme Makeover, but I think it was a good idea. Kate Moss may have compartmentalized storage and a whole extra room for her clothes, but I don’t and I wanted to know that the survivors of this massacre were going into a clean, fresh, empty wardrobe. When it was emptied, I gave it a bit of a dust too, because YOLO.

Now you are into full detox mode: begin, be bold and venture to be wise, as Horace said just before his rearranged his toga drawer.

I have to admit the ruthlessness levels climbed as I got deeper into the detox and became more panicky about it never being over. But I think that was probably quite helpful, as it forced me to make decisions.

You can also do a ‘not sure’ pile, like Never Underdressed’s junior fashion editor Elin Evans. ‘Anything I’m not 100% sure I want to get rid of goes into a bag, where it stays for a couple of months,’ she explains. ‘Of course when I revisit the bag, I never keep anything in it, but psychologically it’s much easier to part with things.’

Anything I hadn’t worn in over a year went, unless it was posh or had sentimental value. The sentimental value pile kept creeping up, so I had to introduce a rule that if I had ever worn it to kiss someone, we had to at least still be in touch. That helped no end to reduce the sentimental value pile.

I was pretty rabid about getting rid of things that didn’t fit. I’m 28; I’m never going to be a size 6 again. But I might be a size 8 again (ha!), I reasoned and clawed back a few bits of doll-sized clothing.

Never Underdressed’s staff writer Laura Silver is more disciplined on this than I am: ‘I’ve moved house a lot and lost weight in the last few years, so a lot of clothes got culled along the way and there’s something really refreshing about seeing only what I actually wear hanging up. I’m ruthless about it these days. If feels good to give something to somebody and I’ve never missed any of it.’

Piling through all this stuff was an affirmation, in a way. Far from wading through frou-frou ‘once in a lifetime’ pieces, I practically drowned in black jersey, black jeans and black dresses. I know my mind and I have consistent taste. I am a good shopper, to borrow from Peep Show. And now I know that to buy any more black tops this century would be folly.

What I also discovered was that I had 19 pairs of jeans. Nobody needs 19 pairs of jeans.

By the time I reached halfway through my wardrobe, with two chests of drawers still to go, I had lost the will to live. I forgot to add that to the list at the top of things you will need. You will need the will to live.

Before long though, I was overwhelmed with zeal and tackled my pants and socks drawers too, pausing briefly to laugh at the size differential between pants bought at university and pants bought recently. It was like comparing a pocket square with industrial tarpaulin.

At its close, my wardrobe detox has yielded five binbags for the charity shop plus one more which has the ‘edit’ pile in it. This is a mixture of decent stuff that I don’t wear and could sell or give to my family, and some vintage pieces of my mum’s that I had a great time pretending I was Stevie Nicks in between 2001 and 2010. It felt only polite to offer them back to her.

The sentimental ‘keep’ pile ended up being really not that big, so will be wrapped in acid-free tissue paper and transferred to a storage box under my bed. I wanted the fun of sucking all the air out of one of those vacuum packs, but Elika Gibbs is very strict about what you can use them for – chunky knits and coats only, as they crease more delicate pieces to the point of ruin.

Some post-match analysis from my wardrobe detox:

The most overdue pieces that went out were designer collaborations from over the years, I think because they felt such a treat at the time I had bought them. But I checked eBay and they were all going for a tenner, so there’s no pointing hoarding them like collector’s items.

The things I got rid of that made the most difference were a few really chunky knits. You don’t realize how much room they take up until they are’t there anymore. Barbara Windsor must have a helluva time of it with all of hers. I’ve restricted myself to a couple of really classic high-end ones and ditched the rest.

Ballet shoes are officially over. I chucked all of the pairs I had left, having not worn them in more than a year. Sayonara to lower-back pain, bunions and spreadfoot.

Yes. I know. It doesn’t look any different.

I will be taking all of my wardrobe debris to a local charity shop, but you could also car-boot-sale or eBay it. I know I will never get round to this and, even if I did, I might punch someone who tried to haggle with me. So.