Not Your Mother's Uniform

In the past few months, I lost some weight and inches around my body. Because a lot of my clothes were already a bit roomy to begin with, most of them didn’t fit anymore and once I purged my closet, it had next to nothing in it. So I went on mini shopping sprees, buying a few items at a time whenever I saved up the money. Now that I've done this a few times, I realized just how much I worry about looking the right way, and having enough variety so that people don’t think I only own a handful of tops.

I feel like so many of us – especially women – feel pressure to not wear the same thing every day. We assume that at least one person out there is paying attention to what we’re wearing and would ridicule us if we wore the same thing all the time.

Thinking about this reminded me of something I learned about over the summer called The Uniform Project: a woman's wearing the same dress every day for a year to raise money for charity. She had a friend design a dress for her and had 7 identical dresses made, one for each day of the week. Each day for the past year, she’s been making her outfits unique by adding layers and accessories, wearing her dress as a top, a jacket, and, of course, a dress. Her year is almost up, and she’s raised over $75,000 for education in India.

Seeing how she was able to create new outfits every day with the same pieces has made me reconsider how I look at clothes and fashion. Considering the ways I already try to apply sustainability to fashion, I definitely think I’ll get more creative so I can keep cutting down on waste.

What do you think of The Uniform Project? Would you be able to wear the same thing every day?