the 100 club
meet three folks who’ve scored a century in their own unique way.
“Did you wash it?” That’s the first thing people usually ask Julia Mooney when they hear she wore the same dress for 100 days. The New Jersey schoolteacher and artist donned one grey, button-down frock day in, day out to make a wider point about consumerism and sustainability – and yes, she did wash it regularly. “Everyone wants to think I’m a stinky hippie!” Julia exclaims. “But I shower, I wear make-up. I’d wear something else to bed, and if I needed to, I’d handwash or spot-clean the dress, and it was good as new.”
Julia’s experiment kicked off in 2018. She’d spent the summer holidays relaxing with her family, barely thinking about what to wear each morning and whether or not it would impress anyone, and it felt great. “I remember joking to my husband about what would happen if I just wore the same thing to work every day,” she says. “There’s a huge environmental impact and human cost to clothing, so we should be questioning the social norm that we always have to wear something different.”
What started as a joke increasingly felt like a worthwhile challenge. Julia decided to give it a go for the new school term, picking out an ethically and sustainably made hemp dress from the London brand Thought Clothing. She wouldn’t explicitly tell her colleagues or students what she was up to, but would document her experience on her personal Instagram. It took a while for anyone at work to cotton on to her repeat outfits, but soon enough, she felt people staring at her – though few dared to ask questions.
That all changed when the local news got word of her experiment. Having learnt more about Julia’s intentions, staff and students quickly got on board with her message
– a few students even tried the challenge themselves. “It was great for them to think about the pressure they put on themselves,” Julia says. Even her 12-year-old daughter, who initially refused to take part, eventually gave it a go. “She was really surprised her best friend didn’t notice she was wearing the same thing until she brought it up herself.” What Julia found particularly fascinating was the lack of interest in her husband (also a teacher), who’d been wearing the same outfit every day, as well. “He was wearing the exact same slacks and button-up to school! It didn’t seem to matter because he was a man.”
Though Julia says she’s far from a fashionista, she admits to feeling a little bored of her get-up by the halfway mark. But she took on the challenge to work with what she already had, and resisted the impulse to buy something new. Instead, she embroidered parts of the dress to add a little variation over the 100 days, and by the end of the project, cut it up and put it back together with new fabric and different buttons.
These days, Julia’s become much more conscious of what she buys and how practical each item is. “We often feel like there are so many huge problems in the world and we can’t solve these things on our own,” she says. “It was cool to demonstrate that this is one small thing we can do to make change at a cultural level. That was really empowering.”
It’s normal to feel awkward at parties or stumble over small talk, but Kaley Chu realised her shyness had become a real issue when she failed to utter a word during an important work meeting. At the time, something as simple as buying a sandwich was super-stressful for the then 29-year-old. “I was so introverted, I literally couldn’t talk to any Australians,” she says. “I thought, ‘I can’t live like that anymore.'”
Kaley first moved from Hong Kong to Melbourne when she was 17. Self-conscious about her English skills, she muddled through by surrounding herself with fellow immigrants from her home city. “I don’t know if it’s lucky or unlucky,” she says, “but all my friends were from Hong Kong, my husband was too, and the majority of clients in my last job were Asian. I lived within my comfort zone and I survived, but I wasn’t thriving.”
Things came to a head when Kaley switched jobs and experienced the aforementioned nightmare meeting. Frustrated with herself, she concocted a personal challenge: sit down to lunch with 100 strangers. She wasn’t fussed about who she’d meet; as long as they were different to her – either in age, race, religion, industry or cultural background – and were up for a chat, it was a date.
She started by messaging people on Linkedin. Most rejected or ignored her at first (“Everyone was like, ‘Are you trying to sell me something?’”), but once she had a few lunches under her belt and began sharing her experiences online, others became curious. “Because of my shyness, I actually spent a lot of time listening to people instead of talking,” she says of her initial meetings. “Listening to their stories was like going to a movie where you can actively ask questions. I loved that.”
One of Kaley’s most life-changing experiences took place when she had lunch with actor Shane Jacobson. The conversation got so deep that Shane wound up encouraging Kaley to improve her relationship with her mum. “I never say ‘I love you’ to my parents,” she explains. “Even though we know we love each other, we don’t say it out loud. But Shane insisted on it, and spent so much time convincing me to tell them that I finally did. It made my mum’s day and we’ve gotten so much closer because of it.”
Nowadays, Kaley is well past her goal of 100 lunches, but she has no intention of stopping. Her chats with strangers feel like invaluable life lessons – even the inevitable awkward moments. One lunch date refused to shake her hand (she later learnt traditional Judaism forbids men from touching women who aren’t their spouse) and she “completely freaked out” when another gave her a kiss on the cheek. “There was a lot of culture shock!”
Thanks to her various lunch guests, she’s also run a marathon, tried stand-up comedy, gone skydiving, scored speaking gigs and even secured a book deal. Sitting in unavoidable silence no longer feels uncomfortable, and she’s finally proven to herself that she’s not boring – a major insecurity she had at the beginning of the project. “A lot of people have told me I’m a completely different person now – including my husband,” she laughs. “Doing this has broadened my horizons and made me much more curious about the world.”
There was a lot of cream sponge back in Nellie Marriott’s day. If you were a good homemaker, you always had something sweet on hand, just in case a visitor ducked in for a cuppa. “A day wouldn’t go past when I didn’t make a cake,” Nellie says. “Of course, you had to milk the cow every morning to make the cream and butter for it.” In keeping with tradition, there were plenty of baked goods to go around on Nellie’s 105th birthday – though the Perth centenarian didn’t have to lift a finger (or milk a cow) to enjoy her milestone afternoon tea.
Born in 1915 into a family of seven, Nellie grew up around Western Australia’s Collie and Bunbury regions. Life was harsh out in the bush – and to make things even harder, her father was accidentally killed while working at a timber mill when she was five, and her mother was often ill. “There were no conveniences – no water, no light, no tractors,” she says. “But we were very fortunate to have a stepfather who was good to us.”
Nellie still remembers her early life in great detail. Her family lived in a one-room house with a ‘bedroom’ at one end and a ‘kitchen’ at the other, and she spent a lot of time helping her mother cook and clean. In her downtime, she went on bushwalks and played tennis, though there wasn’t much else by way of entertainment. School was also in a one-room shack, and most people left at 14 to find work – Nellie included. The Depression years particularly stick out in her mind. “We had people coming and asking us every day if they could chop some wood to get lunch,” she says. “We were better off because we had cows and grew vegetables, but it was very depressing. Women couldn’t feed their children.”
Nellie didn’t live in a house with electricity until she was well into her 40s. By then, she was married with two children and living in Perth. She’d worked as a “sweets cook” at the Commonwealth Bank cafeteria for nine years, but like most women at the time, stuck to housework most of her life. “It was a full-time job!” she says. “Before we lived in the house with electricity, I’d have to get down on my hands and knees to scrub the floors – they used to get so dirty from the wood fires.”
The biggest change she’s observed in her life – apart from the miracle washing machines and easy-to-clean fabrics we have today – is access to schooling. “I left the country and came to Perth permanently so my children could get an education,” she says. “Now I have very good grandchildren who are lawyers. I’ve got an orthodontist, a dentist – I’m well looked after and am very fortunate.”
Nellie certainly never thought she’d reach 105 years, let alone have the queen and all members of parliament write to congratulate her on the achievement. Her age is somewhat of an anomaly – most of her family members passed away quite early – but Nellie is still sharp as a tack. “I still walk around, I shower by myself and keep my clothes clean,” she says. “And I love seeing my great-grandchildren. I’m the happiest I could be, let’s put it that way.”