Before we begin, take a moment if you would to tidy up your mental space — toss out your to-do list, rearrange your dreams, color-coordinate your insecurities, whatever you need to do to make space for this new, extremely messy tidying drama I am about to present to you: Celebrity organizer Linda Koopersmith is claiming celebrity organizer Marie Kondo stole her signature upright folding method. Oh my God.
“What Marie calls her KonMari Method, is actually a folding technique created by me 27 years ago,” [sounds of shattering glass and the contents of an overstuffed closet bursting out onto the ground] Koopersmith told “Page Six,” referring to Kondo’s signature method of folding clothes upright. “When I first saw Marie demonstrate my fold on TV as her own, it was so upsetting. I felt like somebody had stolen my baby.”
Koopersmith, who is also known as “The Beverly Hills Organizer,” and worked on the Style Network’s 2003 show Clean House, says she is a pioneer of the organizing business, and that she invented the upright folding method when her daughter was 3 so that she could see all of her clothes. “I have shown how the folded item should stand up on its own for many, many years,” she explained. Here is video proof, shared by Koopersmith’s Clean House co-host Allen Haff:
“While others may claim credit for this innovation Linda is proud to have inspired so many others in her field and looks forward to sharing more of her patented organizing technology in the future,” Haff wrote in the caption to the video.
Koopersmith also went on to bash Kondo’s method of asking whether items “spark joy,” saying, “My underwear does not spark joy for me, but I am certainly not going throw it all away.”
Kondo has not yet responded to Koopersmith’s claims.
This is not the first time the KonMari organizational method has been criticized. In January, shortly after her show, Tidying Up With Marie Kondo, premiered on Netflix, some viewers became enraged that Kondo suggests getting rid of books that don’t spark joy.
“Do NOT listen to Marie Kondo or Konmari in relation to books,” tweeted novelist Anakana Schofield. “Fill your apartment & world with them. I don’t give a shite if you throw out your knickers and Tupperware but the woman is very misguided about BOOKS. Every human needs a v extensive library not clean, boring shelves.”
Then, people got mad that people were mad about the books, and the discourse became extremely cluttered, but no one claimed Kondo had swiped her book tidying method from them.
And with that, may your mind be returned to the sloppy, cluttered, dust and drama-filled disaster area it was before.
