Personal Organizer to the Stars Accuses Marie Kondo of Ripping Off Her Folding Technique

Some juicy news for my fellow clutter-loving dirtbags who will NEVER organize their closets and no trend can make them: A personal organizer to the stars is alleging that Marie Kondo ripped off her signature folding method. I’m so excited, because I love mess!

This news comes via—where else?—Page Six. Linda Koopersmith, who bills herself as “The Beverly Hills Organizer” and whose clients include Serena Williams, Jennifer Lopez, and Orlando Bloom, is not happy about how Marie Kondo is teaching people to fold their clothing:

Koopersmith said, “What Marie calls her KonMari Method, is actually a folding technique created by me 27 years ago. It was published in my book in 2005, it was shown on the TV show ‘Clean House’ for years and seen on YouTube videos.

“I am a pioneer of the organizing business. I started in 1989 … I invented that upright folding method when my daughter was three to organize her drawers so she could see everything. I have shown how the folded item should stand up on its own for many, many years.

“Despite this, it has been claimed that Marie is the creator. of the ‘upright fold’. Nobody has asked her, ‘How did you come up with this?’ 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.”

Page Six also cites her fellow pros, as well:

The US National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) don’t appear to be konverts either. A 2016 New York Times piece described how the group “is almost unanimously anti-Kondo, complaining that she’s getting credit for doing a lot of things that all pro organizers do — she’s just doing them with better marketing … They also say her methods were too draconian, and that the clients they knew couldn’t live in Kondo’s world.”

Koopersmith said: “This woman is not going to stop, the thing that makes her famous is my fold. That’s her claim to fame— she calls it the Kondo method … But it is the Linda Koopersmith method!” But there’s a lot more going on with the Marie Kondo phenomenon than just the folding technique, which—no offense to Linda—seems like an approach that could have been generated pretty easily through parallel evolution.

However, dissent within the ranks of the personally organized only empowers those of us who thrive on trash. Come, my fellow clutter-lovers—it is our time to strike!