With her dramatic before-and-after visuals, Mangano is convincing that packed closets, clothes-strewn floors, and peaky sweater shoulders are major quality-of-life issues. "She seems to have spent weeks watching people hang things in their closets," Elberse says. "You feel she understands everything that can go wrong." As Mangano demonstrates the transformation from unseemly jumble to rainbow-hued regimentation, the promise becomes a metaphor for something grander. "The real problem she is addressing isn't hanging clothes," Elberse says. "It's getting rid of the mess in your life. The solution to all that is bothering you."