WELLNESS
THE JOY OF DECLUTTERING The art and business of tidying
Sara Alissa, founder of S.O.R.T.E.D, one of the first companies providing professional home organizing services in the Kingdom, gives us a primer on the lifestyle movement that’s having Saudis purging their homes and spreading joy. A lot of Saudis have become interested in the whole idea of decluttering— how has it become relevant to our culture today? There’s been an entire industry that’s blossomed around organizing spaces and decluttering in the West for many decades, but yes, it’s relatively new to the Gulf. In terms of understanding cultural nuances, it’s important to look back at history to understand where we are coming from and how our collecting habits have evolved as people. The emergence of a consumer culture on a large scale in United States or Europe began with the economic boom after World War II in the 1950s. In the Gulf, a consumer culture on the same scale didn’t start until several decades after the oil boom of the late ‘60s and ‘70s. In the past, whether it’s a Bedouin, city dweller or farmer, 98 MARCH/APRIL 2019
they all faced limited resources so they took care of what they had and passed it down along the generations. When affordable mass-produced goods came to the market, you had more but the habit didn’t change. And also, in the 1950s, the average house size in the Gulf was not only smaller but housed several generations of an extended family. With the advent of the nuclear family came a trend towards bigger houses containing fewer people. There was more room per person and that extra space was filled with clothing, books, papers, and gadgets. We’ve now reached a point where we are reassessing how we live and trying to find ways to conserve and not be wasteful. Part of that movement is understanding how to value and take care of what we already have. I ultimately want to encourage people to surround themselves with what they love. When does it become a time to seek professional help on this front? We generally have two kinds of clients who seek us out. On one hand, we work with people who recently moved into a home or space and need assistance