And the guest wore… it again
Can’t see the point in a new dress for every summer occasion? You’re in good company, says
Once, in my 20s, a colleague complimented me on my dress. “You must have so many clothes,” she added. “You never wear the same outfit twice!” I should have been flattered – she only meant it kindly – but I was mortified. Oh God, I remember thinking. Am I a shopaholic? Some kind of compulsive, consumerist airhead who has more clothes than everyone else, to the point that it’s so noticeable that people are talking about it?
No. It could not be so. I worked in fashion. Anna Dello Russo definitely had way more clothes than me.
Fast-forward a couple of decades, and it’s fair to say that nobody would ever accuse me of never wearing the same outfit twice. I still have piles of clothes, but a heady combination of two kids, a full-time job, scant free time and a puppy has contrived to ensure that I wear the same jumper and sweatpants every day. Which is fine if you mainly work from home, as I do. Leave the house, however, and it can feel as though you are being judged.
Whether you are off to a wedding or the shops, in the Instagram era where everything is endlessly, microscopically documented, there is considerable pressure to present your best possible self, as opposed to the dreary one in an outfit everyone has seen too many times already.
Wearing a rotating uniform to the office is one thing – we all do that – but as we move into peak wedding season, this pressure only mounts. No matter that you’re not invited to Windsor Castle on May 19: there are still 2,049 other weddings to attend, not to mention a couple of christenings, the odd black tie, and that day at the races you agreed to when you were slightly drunk.
While it would be lovely to splurge on a different outfit for every occasion, there is also your bank balance to consider.
Your idle searches on matchesfashion.com must remain just that. Happily, any shame attached to re-wearing an outfit has been greatly dispelled by high-profile aficionados such as Amal Clooney, Mary Berry and the Duchess of Cambridge. Every day is an “occasion” for Kate, yet the knowledge that each look will be documented worldwide doesn’t seem to deter her from pressing repeat. Whether it’s a bright pink Mulberry coat, a distinctive floral LK Bennett dress or a floor-length cream Roland Mouret gown, she has no qualms about being seen to be thrifty. One favourite coat dress, by Day Birger et Mikkelsen, has even been worn three times, in 2006, 2011 and 2012.
And why not? When the actress Rita Moreno wore the same gold brocade gown to this year’s Oscars that she had worn to the awards ceremony back in 1962, she was roundly praised for her parsimony. The gown was a neat reminder that fashion is cyclical: it looked as stylish for spring 2018 as it must have done 56 years ago.
When even Anna Wintour, editor in chief of American Vogue, cheerfully steps out in the same Manolo slingbacks and sleeveless Prada dress, then clearly repeat-dressing is acceptable for the rest of us. Besides, in the higher echelons of the fashion industry, it has long been considered a mark of true style to rotate the same narrow remit of favoured items – usually by Céline – over and over again.
“I have no shame about wearing the same clothes all the time,” Caroline de Maigret, the Parisian fashion plate, said recently. “When people look at you, you want them to see more than your clothes.” Unfortunately, if you are a woman, it seems that people rarely do.
Last year, a woman took to Mumsnet to complain that she had been shamed by her own family for wearing the same outfit to three different weddings, a move they branded “disrespectful”.
Nadia Sawalha, the TV presenter, meanwhile, was widely criticised on social media after deliberately wearing the same snakeskin blouse eight days in a row, with many viewers assuming that she must be pregnant. Gee, we must have missed the memo that states all pregnant women immediately lose any desire to change their top. In fact, Sawalha had hit upon the experiment after speaking to former Strictly contestant Judge Rinder, after he confessed that he had worn the same outfit for every interview, and nobody had noticed.
Everyone has noticed Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg wearing the same grey T-shirt 24/7, yet when questioned about it, he gets away with an airy, “I really want to clear my life so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community. I feel like I’m not doing my job if I spend any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous.”
One dreads to think how much more serious Facebook’s data scandal would have been had Zuckerberg spent his working life being judged by the same stringent sartorial standards as Amal Clooney. “I feel like I’m not doing my job as an international human rights lawyer if I spend any of my energy on things like wearing this season’s Dolce & Gabbana dress” is something we would hear her utter, er, never. No wonder a 2016 poll by M&S found that women spend 17 minutes every day “ransacking” their wardrobes for something suitable to wear.
To be clear: there should never be any shame in wearing the same outfit twice, thrice, or as many times as you feel like it. While few of us are as extreme in this pursuit as Prince Charles, who recently revealed that he is still walking around in a pair of shoes bought in 1971, increasingly, even the most spendy, sartorially fickle women are adjusting their mindsets and shopping more sustainably.
In addition to being savvy, recycling our outfits is good for the planet. Given that a report last year by The Ellen Macarthur foundation claimed that half of high street fashion is disposed of within a year, and that in the last 15 years, the amount of clothing purchased has doubled, this sea change can’t come a moment too soon – not least for the seas themselves, blighted as they are by pollution and plastic.
Faced with those 2,049 summer weddings and other social occasions, by all means add a twist to your recycled suit by swapping a camisole for a T-shirt, or fox people into thinking you’re wearing a different dress by changing up your handbag or your shoes. But we all know they won’t actually be foxed. Not when Instagram is around. So why bother trying? Better to hold your head high, wear the same thing with pride and pity the judgers. Really, you’d think they’d all have something better to talk about.