Even if your finances are spotless, your spice rack alphabetized, and your shoes stacked in easily identifiable boxes, your lingerie drawer is probably like most women's — a tangled mass of straps and hooks and unmatched fabrics, with the bra you're looking for invariably somewhere in the middle. You deserve better. "For God's sake, it's the closest thing to your body," says lingerie designer Josie Natori, who keeps her bras and panties in drawers of their own, lined up like little soldiers. If the rest of your life isn't marching in tight formation, straightening out one unruly corner can give you a marvelously empowering sense of control (today the lingerie drawer, tomorrow the world); and besides, opening up a beautifully arranged drawerful of pretty panties all in a row each morning can be one of life's small pleasures. Here's how to do it.

Step 1: Out With the Old

Your first job is to take all your underwear and dump it out on the bed. Why? Because before you can organize, you need to do some deaccessioning. But editing underwear is easy because you only have to deal with two piles: Things to keep and things to throw away. No maybes. No maybe-it'll-come-back-in-fashions. No giveaways. Please. (The Salvation Army will thank you.)

First cull: Anything you really wouldn't want to be hit by a truck while wearing. Gray things that used to be white; anything ratty, ripped, stained, or spotted with holes. "Are you not good enough to wear good panties?" asks New York lingerie designer Leigh Bantivoglio.

With that same I'm-worth-it mentality, take a hard look at what's left and pitch it if:

You haven't worn it in a year (there must be a reason).

The color has faded.

The seams are beginning to come undone.

The elastic is going — or gone.

The underwires have lost their original shape or are poking through the fabric, which happens when a bra has been thrown into the washing machine — sans lingerie bag — too many times.

It doesn't fit properly anymore. "Weight fluctuates, especially when you are pregnant," says Nanette DiFalco, director of the One-On-One personal shopping service at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York. "People say, 'I'll lose the weight; I'll wear it again,' especially if it is an expensive bra. But when I had a baby, even though I went back to my size, gravity changed a lot."

It didn't fit properly to begin with.

It's uncomfortable — divest yourself of bras that ride up and thongs that dig in. (Thong tip: Cotton mesh is less likely to gouge than nylon. Try Cosabella, On Gossamer, Hanky Panky, or Calvin Klein.)