ALL IN
When the call to buy grows ever deafening, one couple shrugs it off to pursue a new style vision: sharing a wardrobe together. By Alice Birrell.
When the call to buy grows ever deafening, one couple shrugs it off to pursue a new style vision: sharing a wardrobe together.
When Natalie Toman saw the current wave of decluttering break across the world, she joined in, not knowing she’d be blindsided by a total twist. “It was January and I felt like everyone was into Marie Kondo,” recalls the PR and partnerships executive for Australian luxury boutique Harrolds. She would unwittingly pick up more than she aimed to leave behind when she dropped off the spoils of a wardrobe cleanse at a Melbourne consignment store with her partner, Dale Bordin.
“They had such good stuff. Jil Sander, Margiela … just such good pieces,” she reels off, a hint ruefully. What caught her eye was a vest by Maison Margiela. “Dale was trying it on and he was obsessing over it and then I said: ‘Okay, well, if you really like it, let me see how it looks on me.’ I tried it on and said: ‘This looks mad on me, too.’”
That happy accident has resulted in a total shakeup of their take on their respective wardrobes. “We thought: ‘This is cool. We can approach this more.’ And then I guess it opened up a can of worms: ‘Hey, I think that’s a really beautiful idea,’” says Bordin, a graphic designer and artist. That idea was to own a shared wardrobe, with the revelation that they wanted less, but just as much quality. “We spend money on a piece that gets halved in price because we’re both spending money on it, or it’s just a staple piece,” he explains.
Theirs is a philosophy touched on sometimes tritely in fashion – the boyfriend shirt, the platitudinous ‘borrowed from the boys’ – but this speaks more expansively to where we find ourselves in 2019. It’s the dream of being more communal at a time when polarised thinking rules, all while the traditional codes of dressing are breaking down.
“I think sometimes people are scared of the idea of there being a grey area; that not everything is one way or the other,” says Bordin. “There’s a whole world in between those things that can be explored.”
The couple’s rules, while still being developed, are simple – see, consider together, buy – but they acknowledge their idyll is not necessarily one-size-fits-all. “I think it’s due to the fact we both have the same interests that we’re able to play with it and actually follow through,” says Toman. “We both have dual personalities of being feminine and
masculine,” agrees Bordin. They acknowledge the wardrobe pendulum often swings in Toman’s direction, as Bordin’s taste doesn’t yet extend to skirts, although he wouldn’t rule out kilt silhouettes. There’s also the fact that Toman, the smaller of the two, can fit more easily into tailored shirts from Commes des Garçons and Sacai, and can wear blazers and trousers oversized (shoes, for the pair, are a sizing impossibility).
“We’re now looking at everything we have together with fresh eyes,” says Toman, pointing out that if fit is a problem, it’s about finding a workaround. “Dale is so much taller than me, so his pants are far longer. A lot of his pants are going to be wider in the waist, but you’re not necessarily looking at them as challenges, but: ‘Okay, how am I going to deal with this? I’ll just wear a belt.’”
Their tastes are similarly classic. Working closely with a buying team at Harrolds for the past five years, previewing the likes of Saint Laurent,
Tom Ford and Rick Owens, Toman developed an eye for quality. Bordin grew up without the means for frequent purchases of new clothing, and as a skateboarder was used to seeing a piece to its bitter, skate-shredded end. “I had that as a step up to be more considerate in how things were consumed,” he reflects.
“It’s always going to be a work in progress, but it’s a really exciting journey to go on together,” says Toman, who is about to get dressed for a wedding she’ll attend with Bordin at Melbourne’s Heide Museum of Modern Art. So how will they approach the style proposition at hand? “Well, I actually bought a Jil Sander dress before we came up with this idea,” Toman says with a laugh. “It hasn’t come into play in this situation … The other night I was wearing the Margiela vest and a skirt. It’s all about what I currently have and mixing it with what Dale has. It’s like fresh eyes.” The life-changing magic of sharing.