By Andrea F. Siegel , Sun reporter|June 29, 2008
When Jodi and Clark Lare were renovating and enlarging their Stevenson home, Jodi made a request:
"I always dreamed of having my own dressing room."
She got it - a 15-by-17-foot cream-hued room with a shoe wall and broad cabinets where her sister and friends can sit and assess an outfit she tries on by the angled dressing-room-style mirrors, where good light shows the true colors of the hanging clothing, where the accessories organization is efficiently built into drawers and where conveniences are hidden. Everything has its place, and everything is in one place.
Big, stylish walk-in closets like this one are hot. They're being fueled by big wardrobes, big homes, downsizers making the most of smaller condo space, empty nesters sick of unused home gyms (instead of hanging shirts on handlebars), the trend toward streamlining the bedroom within a master suite - and seeing movie and television walk-ins.
Outfitting closets is now a $3 billion-a-year industry, excluding do-it-yourselfers and custom cabinetmakers, said Helen Kuhl, editorial director of Closet, a five-year-old trade publication. Homeowners envision a master suite with a bedroom devoid of stored clothing even as they shop for more, Kuhl said.
"People don't want dressers anymore," she said.
Early in the recent movie Sex and the City, as Carrie and Mr. Big decide to wed, he asks Carrie if he should get her a diamond.
"No. Just get me a really big closet," Carrie says.
Danny Black, sales director for Chesapeake Closets, said his wife told him the line resonated with the mostly female audience. "She told me Carrie said what they've all been thinking,"
When Carrie opens the new closet, they gasp. It is a sleek and chic space of white, with glass and tall doors, with angled racks for all her Manolos, a space larger than the average Manhattan walk-up.
But more women have closets that more closely resemble Carrie's in the TV series - chaotic. It took a New York minute for Sex and the City to inspire closet envy, some closet specialists say.
"Starting the next day, the calls started," Black said, with potential clients saying they wish they had the big space and Mr. Big's bucks for Carrie's closet.
Reminiscent of her closet are the wood-framed glass doors and bright, open look that are stylish now, he said. "They don't want it to look like Grandpa's study," Black said.
Five years ago, Oprah's closet, an expansive walk-in, had TV viewers' attention.
