I store off-season clothes in a large basement closet, and I do it out of necessity - my house was built in 1960 and the closets are teeny tiny. I have one bedroom closet for my seasonal clothes, DH has another, and the third bedroom closet holds cleaning supplies. I would love to have a large walk-in where I could have all my clothes and not have to switch them out!

I store off my "very winter" or "very summer' things - just because I don't have room in my very small closet which I share with DH. So this would be wool coats / puffers, heavy sweaters, pants which are too hot for the summer.
Everything of medium weight stays in rotation.
When - at last - I convert my small spare bedroom into a walk in closet (my dream I cannot accomplish for 3 years now) I will have everything on display there year round!

Just came back to say that what I actually do, is reorganise my walk in to suit the season. For me, in the cooler months, for example, this means hanging the long sleeve tops in the prime viewing position and popping my short sleeve tops to the part of the closet that is not as easily viewed (my wardrobe is a U shape) so the items that hand in the two "corners' can be obscured.

I do a mix of both store and all out - I live in extreme climates from winter to summer and I find it jarring to see my clothes for winter in summr and vice versa.

I store hanging clothes so my closet is a fully functional working closet and only what I will wear is hanging for me to see. It makes me happy - The Kondo book helped me realize this.

For sweaters - I leave them in the two drawers they take up in my dresser - because honestly I know myself and my summr clothes wouldn't even come close to filling those two drawers and next thing you know I would be shopping to fill the space. So those two drawers stay closed during the summer.

I don't store anything. We have very varied weather and I can't really pack things away for a few months. I've been wearing my wool pullovers at home just last month because my flat was so cold. And everything fits into the space I have, so I don't really see the need to pack things away. I do change the shoes I have out next to my door with the weather and I change the placement of warm and cold season things in the wardrobe, though.

I guess it makes perfect sense, but there seems a common theme among those of us with very definite extreme seasons, to get those babies out of sight!

Deborah, I can see your wardrobe functioning really well as you describe (as I can also see you working with the 5 piece wardrobe as on your other thread) because of your cohesive colour scheme (or lack thereof ) and they way you work with layers.

thanks for sharing ladies, I've found this quite interesting.

I either have less clothing or a much larger closet, but I keep all of my clothing in my closet, except for one swap. I swap shorts & long underwear at the change of the season. Otherwise, every single piece of clothing is stored in that closet.

I purge my closet constantly, which helps a lot.

Count me in as one of those people who enjoys the more or less twice-yearly chore of switching out my warm weather and cold weather wardrobe. A lot of my off-season clothes are easily accessible, since they're hanging on a rack in the basement, but others are boxed away. (Most woolens go in a cedar trunk that serves as a coffee table in my living room.) The switch-out is a good time for me to do discards, and like most people I tend to discard from among the stuff that's coming into season, probably because it seems natural to try it on at that point.

And actually it used to be more of a chore in the sense of something I didn't look forward to, but now--since I've lost weight and gotten much more into clothes and putting together outfits in the last year and a half--it's a positive treat. Oh, right, I got those tall black boots at the end of last winter! I forgot about those silk skirts!

I move the correct season front and center in my closet and move either long-sleeves or tanks into the bottom drawer of my dresser and move shorts to a lower shelf in the closet. The only items I store away are my wool items in the summer (gloves, a couple hats, slacks) and the silk in the winter (short-sleeved blouses) in case of pests. Shoes get re-boxed, but are still stored in the closet.