‘Spark Joy’ consultant looks at environmental implications
‘Certified master’ of KonMari method helps people in Toronto and abroad declutter their homes
Ivanka Siolkowsky walks around the bedroom in Anne Zimmerman’s bright Toronto condo looking for a place to perform the ritual.
As Zimmerman follows behind her, Siolkowsky walks past the bed to a wall of windows overlooking the city. “I’m feeling this is a good space for it,” she says.
Both women sit down on the floor, close their eyes and sit in silence for 30 seconds.
“OK,” Siolkowsky says. “If you’re ready, I’m ready.”
The women get up, walk into Zimmerman’s closet, remove all of the clothes from the hangers (minus Zimmerman’s boyfriend’s things) and put them on the bed.
Thus begins what Siolkowsky calls the “Spark joy test” — the act of separating that which “sparks joy” from that which doesn’t.
If this scenario sounds familiar, you’ve probably already seen a version of it on TV, specifically on the hit Netflix show “Tidying up with Marie Kondo.”
If so, you know the drill: Japanese tidying maven Marie Kondo enters a home full of things human beings have a habit of hording (tangled computer chords, heaps of old clothes) and with techniques far gentler than those usually applied on reality TV, she teaches her charges how to tidy up, or to put it her way, how to discard stuff that no longer “sparks joy.” (Kondo’s clients literally “thank” their old junk, out loud, before they get rid of it.)
But what fans of the Netflix show may not know is that there are Kondo devotees who precede it. These aren’t mere fans of the tidying star but specially trained KonMari “consultants” — professional organizers who go out into the world and, for a fee, help their clients declutter their homes.
Toronto boasts a handful of these consultants. Ivanka Siolkowsky is arguably the highest profile among them.
The KonMari website itself lists Siolkowsky as a “certified master” of the KonMari method, a title earned by completing “1,500 tidying hours” with clients, and assisting at least two clients in the completion of a “tidying festival,” an elaborate way of saying “organizing session.” (A full session with Siolkowsky, from messy beginning to orderly end, goes for roughly $700). Like other KonMari consultants, Siolkowsky pays an annual fee to use the KonMari brand and list her professional organizing business, the Tidy Moose, on Kondo’s website.
Her work has taken her to Nashville and Barbados (foreign clients sometimes fly her in to declutter their homes) and into the studios of various TV networks. But wherever she goes and whatever the income bracket of her clientele, she hopes to achieve the same end: purging her clients of things they don’t need, and instilling in them an appreciation for the things they choose to keep.
In Zimmerman’s condo, Siolkowsky now tells her client to sort the mess of clothing on the bed into three piles: “Yes,” “no” and “maybe,” the last to be dealt with later. This isn’t typical KonMari
protocol: On the show, Marie Kondo doesn’t allow clients to have a maybe pile. But Siolkowsky does because she knows they “get stuck” sorting through the contents of their life.
The first item Zimmerman gets stuck on is a graphic T-shirt.
“This one I feel bad about because I got it from my mom,” she says.
“The gift is in the giving,” Siolkowsky says.
Zimmerman nods, and puts the T-shirt into the “no” pile. Further items that get the heave are a pyjama top Zimmerman’s boyfriend hates, an old blazer and a black skirt.
Then another garment trips her up: this one a T-shirt that reads “Bride Tribe.”
“I don’t wear it but it was from my best friend’s wedding,” Zimmerman says.
“The wedding is done,” Siolkowsky says. “Not having it doesn’t mean the wedding didn’t happen. It’s not going to eliminate your memories.” Into the “no” pile the T-shirt goes. After an hour, a lot more bare floor is visible in Zimmerman’s formerly cluttered closet. Siolkowsky is busy colourcoding her client’s blouses when Zimmerman notes that nothing she’s thrown away so far was expensive. Siolkowsky isn’t surprised. Her clients are often amazed at how much clothing they have and how much they have to throw away.
Does she feel her work disrupts their patterns of consumption? “I like to think so,” she says.
The KonMari method certainly helped Siolkowsky disrupt her own pattern of consumption. She was an elementary school teacher in her past life, with a “really tidy classroom.” Then in June 2016, a friend, as a joke gift, gave her Kondo’s book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.” Siolkowsky took it seriously.
Two months later, she was on an airplane to New York City, where she paid about $2,000 to train at an official KonMari conference to become a consultant. Her studies included folding techniques (T-shirts folded into neat little packages that can stand upright in a drawer) and, of course, the famous spark joy philosophy.
“For me, it (KonMari) was my first step on a path to minimalism,” she says. “I did the spark joy test and the things that sparked joy for me were the things I already had.”
Once an “emotional shopper,” Siolkowsky became a staunch environmentalist. Professionally, she started making sure every piece of discarded client clothing found its way into a donation bin (even donating excess hangers to university dormitories). Privately, she stopped purchasing anything but necessities. (When it comes to gifts over the holidays, she doesn’t buy material things for family members. She buys them experiences instead: tickets to a Raptors game, for example.)
Her method seemed in line with the general approbation “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo” received when it first aired on Netflix. Here was a celebrity pushing mindfulness over material consumerism — and in America no less! And then came the store. In late 2019, Kondo launched “The Shop at KonMari,” an online store featuring her own line of personal “spark joy” items, such as an $86 candle, a $96 ladle and a $180 cheese knife.
The store did not spark joy in the general public.
“The Queen of Decluttering Would Like to Sell You Some Things” is how the Cut summed up Kondo’s new venture. A column by Vinay Menon in this newspaper ran with the headline: “Marie Kondo’s new store proves she only wants to declutter your wallet.”
Siolkowsky isn’t so harsh. But she doesn’t endorse the store either.
“Every consultant, we have our own pieces that we bring to the table. And my pieces are minimalism and environmentalism. I encourage clients to address their pattern of consumption at the source. So for me personally, I won’t be encouraging people to go to her store and buy things.”
Zimmerman is appreciative of Siolkowsky’s environmentalism, but has her eye on a different prize. “I love that it’s something she does,” she says. “But I’d lie if I said that’s why I picked her.”
Why did she pick her? Because by the end of the day Zimmerman’s closet will be newly spacious and immaculate, and she will shed every item from her “maybe” pile. Siolkowsky will donate it all.
Marie Kondo may be putting more stuff into the world. But at least one of her consultants is redistributing it. The student becomes the master.