They say hindsight is 20/20, and whoever they are is right.
From ages five to 14, I felt plagued by my prep school’s uniform. The plaid skirts and burgundy Land’s End collared polos, marketed to us students as “equalizers,” often felt like a stab at my middle school sense of personal expression and autonomy.
I eagerly anticipated each “Dress-down Day,” when we could wear whatever we wanted — typically in exchange for donating a dollar to charity — to assert my individuality and showcase an outfit that I had been planning for a week in my mind.
Now, with a closet full of clothes and what I’ll now call “adult autonomy,” I find myself wishing I could go back to a time when my life was simplified by the school uniform.
Today’s leading fashion designers, who largely dictate what’s next to trend, have dedicated themselves to the same look for decades.
Designer Carolina Herrera is known to close each runway show in a crisp white button-down, likely folded back at the cuffs, paired with a high-waisted A-line skirt.
When asked about her style in a 1987 interview with Vogue Magazine, Herrara answered, “I prefer clothes that are simple, well cut, but with one major extravagance…something with the sleeves, with the skirt, but nothing too fussy, too flashy.”
Similar in practice but aesthetically opposite is designer Yohji Yamamoto, sometimes known as the “Poet of Back,” who has created a religion around the color black.
Since graduating from Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo, Japan in 1969, Yamamoto has been captivated by the color black. He is nearly always seen wearing all black, accessorized with a fedora hat.
“Black is modest and arrogant at the same time,” Yamamoto told The New York Times in a 2000 interview. “Black is lazy and easy — but mysterious. It means that many things go together, yet it takes different aspects in many fabrics … But above all black says this: ‘I don’t bother you — don’t bother me!’”
It’s safe to say that the fashion industry strongly supports the decision to maintain a daily uniform, even if we feel society does not.
In a Vogue article titled “Confessions of a Serial Outfit Repeater,” writer Liana Satenstein reflects on her daily desire to reach for the same outfit in tees and jeans. For Satenstein, outfit repeating is a sort of guilty pleasure she feels you can’t exactly boast about, especially with judgment heightened being a fashion writer.
“I’ve become a bit self-conscious about it,” she wrote. “Sometimes, I feel like the only one in the office who wears something twice a week. I’m just a tiny girl in the big, bad world of New York City and its cornucopia of clothing options.”
Many of us have been deterred from repeating outfits since childhood, terrified of experiencing a “Lizzie McGuire, you are an outfit repeater” moment.
If you ask me, overconsumption is largely to blame for fear of being caught repeating outfits.
An obsession with consumerism has led to increased pollution, materialism, self-esteem issues and many other problems. Sticking to a uniform actually offers many more benefits than drawbacks.
Eliminating the“I have nothing to wear” crisis — which left me in shambles just yesterday while my Uber was outside — while prioritizing comfort and reducing decision fatigue is enough to convince me to create a daily uniform.
So the next time you catch me reaching for the same rag & bone turtleneck sweater or baggy blue jeans, don’t say anything! Just know — yes, I am outfit repeating. Yes, I am doing it in an intentional and chic way. And yes, you should consider doing so too.
