#uniform dressing

[simple-pretty]

bally spring 2024, look 23

umberto fratini/gorunway.com photo via voguerunway.com

[cygneeclectique]

Jane Wenner

W Magazine, December 2021

Photographer: Theo Wenner

[danettegossett]

The Power and Productivity of Uniform Dressing

If you happened to read my latest blog, Creativity In Uniformity Is The New Black, you’ll realize that this month I’m fascinated by uniforms. If you missed it, you can read it by clicking here.

This fascination has led me to researching the philosophy behind the concept of uniform dressing. I came across an interesting piece at utne.com appropriately entitled, “The Uniform: A Philosophy of Dress.” The author, Stacy Mae Fowles quotes from several sources however this one from an essay entitled “Boring is Productive,“ is of particular interest to me. “Making too many decisions about mundane details is a waste of a limited resource: your mental energy.” Fowles said that during the course of interviewing people for the article that most of them agreed with that statement, saying that the introduction of uniform dressing into their lives has had “a stabilizing effect.”

It’s true, I have had clients especially male executives state that they don’t want to have to think about what they are going to wear each day. In fact I have one client that orders 5 white and 5 beige logoed shirts every 3 months.

In the course of my research I also discovered that indeed many of the greatest icons of the fashion and Internet industries adopt uniform dressing.

The late great Steven Jobs never varied from his uniform of blue jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. Diane von Furstenburg was known for wearing her signature wrap dress. Even Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is noted for wearing a grey t-shirt and blue jeans.

I wish I could adopt a uniform style of dress simply because I could use such a “stabilizing effect”. I can understand that by not having to think about what one is going to wear each day many hours are liberated. That unused mental energy can go toward new more creative and productive endeavors.

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[theuniforms]

[theuniforms]