I’ve been wearing the same thing for six days.
Yes, I’ve been showering. And I’ve changed
everything else other than the dress; but as for how I appeared, I
looked more or less the same from day to day.
My inspiration, Andrea Zittel, is an artist who, as part of her
practice, wears the same outfit for six months at a time. She
designs the outfits herself and even makes multiples in the same
way people with uniforms for their jobs do.
The difference is she chooses her outfits herself.
“When you choose that uniformity, it’s very
liberating; but when the uniformity is imposed upon you from some
larger authority, it becomes limiting, and it’s really
restrictive,” Zittel said.
“I grew up in suburban Southern California, and I think
that you’re really brainwashed to think that variety is
somehow liberating,” she added.
“In some ways, that demand for constant variety can be
quite oppressive,” Zittel said.
There are cultural assumptions that presuppose variety would be
the first choice for everything. It’s hard to understand this
type of simplification in our culture, or at least not without
explanation; it’s understood if “it’s a
uniform” or “it’s part of my artwork.”
But for me, I enjoy the process of getting dressed, perhaps
because it’s a process that lets me express myself and at the
same time can make me feel better.
It’s sometimes considered socially unacceptable to wear
the same clothes day after day, because when you show up wearing
the same thing, people don’t know whether you’ve
showered or changed your underwear and socks.
Though no one has ever outright asked, they always wonder if it
stinks, Zittel said.
Tibrin Follett, a recent USC graduate, was Zittel’s
student before becoming her assistant. She picked up the practice
of wearing the same clothes in June and just switched from a
cooler, summery smock into a warmer winter one.
Smock, the name for the style of dresses she and Zittel
currently create, describes a wraparound dress of sorts. It is one
panel of fabric with a hole for the neck and simple tapering to
cleanly create the body’s silhouette, accentuated by an
A-line, yet fitted, skirt. Despite its simplicity, it’s
actually quite flattering.
When she first started wearing a smock for multiple days, nobody
actually outright asked if she had worn it yesterday, because it
was so obvious that she had, Follett said.
Rather than lessening self-esteem and body image, for Follett,
wearing the same thing every day actually improves body image.
When you design the garment yourself, you don’t have a
comparison between other people’s bodies and your own.
Seeing Follett wearing her dress so proudly allows me to
understand the practice a lot more.
Though friends and family were first weirded out by the
practice, Follett said, “I think eventually it rubs off on
you and you start to want one.”
At her assistant’s suggestion, I decided to try it. As of
now, I’ve been wearing the same thing for six days.
The rules were that I had to wear something I designed; it
couldn’t hold someone else’s ideals about the way my
body should be, and I could change my shoes.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into; would I love it,
or hate it?
It turns out to be a bit of both.
I got ready so much faster in the morning ““ I didn’t
know how long I was taking picking out clothes until I eliminated
it. I encountered no stranger looks than I’d been getting
anyway with my pink and blond hair. I never felt like people
wondered if I had showered.
I did shower, of course, and my hair and makeup changed daily;
it was a subtle shift compared to the gray dress I sewed myself
with a bright orange scarf attached.
I wouldn’t say that I’m going to keep wearing this
outfit for the next six months, but after this, I’m
definitely a lot more open to putting on the same outfit I liked
yesterday.
I have to say though, that on day six, I’m looking forward
to finally putting on a different outfit tomorrow morning.
If you’re interested in fooling people into thinking
you’ve changed your clothes, e-mail Rood at
drood@media.ucla.edu.