clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Marie Kondo is now selling fancy boxes to help you declutter

Joy-sparking merch

Marie Kondo-designed boxes Photos courtesy of KonMari

Marie Kondo, the Japanese organizing consultant who took over the world with her best-selling book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (and soon enough, an entire Netflix show about decluttering), has a new venture and it’s empty boxes.

Launched today, Hikidashi (meaning “to draw out” in Japanese) box sets are intended to facilitate the KonMari Method of tidying—which says to throw out anything that doesn’t “spark joy” and put the remaining items where they ought to be.

At a press preview earlier this month, Kondo spoke about finding that KonMari fans often have trouble completing the tidying process. Hikidashi boxes, which go up for preorder today and ship in September, are supposed to solve that by prompting people to decide what to keep and giving them a place to keep it.

Make no mistake, these are fancy shoe boxes, based off Kondo’s own experience organizing clients’ items with simple boxes like shoe boxes. But Kondo noticed that whereas a reusable box stash is common in Japanese homes, there’s no similar culture in the U.S. She talked about lugging her own collection of boxes to American clients. That collection has been depleted, so now she wants people to have their own supply.

Designed in California and made in China, the boxes are supposed to make whatever is put inside them feel “happy.” They’re made of thick fiberboard with a smooth paper finish, and the interiors are lined with one of four understated prints, like a fun secret for the items held within. After making a box set purchase, you’ll also get access to an “online guided journey” through the KonMari Method with tips on how to use the boxes.

Each $89 set contains six boxes that come in sizes Kondo has deemed the most useful for tidying. While they seem suitable for all kinds of textiles and accessories, Kondo said the set was designed for clothing (which is just one of five categories of belongings to be tidied under the KonMari Method, so you can bet more products are coming). She explained it’s important to section off a drawer, because fabric is thin and folded garments come loose every time you open the drawer.

That sounds like a lot of common sense, but needless to say, I hadn’t thought of resolving my sock drawer chaos with boxes until Kondo’s presentation.

Do I need to spend $89 to fix that problem? Most definitely not.

Would I if I believed in the magic of KonMari? Um, yeah!