Teacher wearing same dress for 100 days
Fashion faux pas makes point about sustainability
MOORESTOWN, N.J. – Julia Mooney stands in front of a classroom of eighthgraders wearing her simple gray, button-down dress.
It’s the same outfit she wore yesterday.
She also wore it the day before. In fact, she’s been wearing it virtually nonstop since early September.
The 34-year-old art teacher at William Allen Middle School has vowed to wear the dress every day she teaches for the first 100 days of the school year. Tuesday is Day 50.
Mooney is trying to raise awareness of what she calls a growing “culture of excess” in America that has filled our closets to overflowing with throwaway garments.
“There is no rule anywhere that says that we have to wear a different thing every day,” she says. “Why do we ask this of each other? Why do we require that we each wear something different every day and buy more clothes and feed into this fast-fashion culture?”
Mooney is not alone. She hoped to spark discussion among her students, friends and co-workers about the peer pressure children face to buy the latest fashions and the sustainability of their “consume, consume, consume” habits.
Call it the antithesis of fast fashion, the inexpensive, quickly made, trend-of-the-moment clothing that has flooded store shelves in recent years, allowing consumers to expand and quickly refresh wardrobes.
Sustainable fashion is about wearing clothing made in an eco-friendly way, buying fewer but better-made pieces of clothing, wearing them more often and making sure garments eventually are recycled.
“This is becoming much more of a mass movement,” says fashion consultant Greta Eagan, author of “Wear No Evil: How to Change the World with Your Wardrobe.” “It’s spreading beyond people who are ‘green and clean’ to the general public.”
Mooney documents her “One Outfit, 100 Days” project on Instagram.
She bought the dress at Thought Clothing, a London-based company that uses natural, organic and recycled fabrics, including wool, hemp and wood-pulp-based Tencel.
Mooney says consumers shy away from better-made clothing that will last longer because it costs more. The thinking is flawed: Better-made clothing can end up being cheaper in the long run.
Mooney paid about $50 for her dress. Over the 100 days she’ll wear it during the project, that works out to just 50 cents a day. “Because we have to wear something different every day, (we think) it can’t be expensive,” she says. “So we buy more cheap clothing that isn’t really high-quality and that uses a lot of natural resources to produce. And then we throw it out.”
Mooney says she buys used clothing from thrift stores and other venues to give it a second life. All of her three young children’s clothing is bought used, she notes.
“It’s cheaper, but even if it wasn’t cheaper, I don’t care, because I feel good that I’m reusing something that’s perfectly good,” she says. “And (the kids) don’t care. They think they’re perfectly new.”
Mooney bought a sewing machine and is teaching herself to make her own clothes – something she says we all should do. She’s also learned to knit.
Mooney says her middle school students are at the perfect age to start thinking about such issues.
“Middle schoolers are trying to define themselves, to figure out their identity,” she says. “And just naturally – partly because of their age but also because of the culture – they are defining themselves and judging each other based on the brands that they are wearing.”
Student Nate Bunting says Mooney’s example prompted him to consider wearing the same clothes for more than one day in a row.
Not for 100 days, though. Maybe “for two,” he says. Adults in Mooney’s world have been mostly on board, she says. A few joined her in wearing the same outfit for 100 days.
Among them is Mooney’s husband. Patrick Mooney, a teacher at nearby Moorestown High School, has worn the same khaki pants and dark blue shirt to classes since the school year began in September.
“It seemed like a pretty simple way of promoting something that most people probably overlook,” says Patrick Mooney, 38. “I was a little intimidated by the prospect of rewearing the same thing every day, but it’s really become quite simple.”
Moorestown High School teacher Beth Glennon was inspired by Mooney’s project to create her own 100-day wardrobe challenge.
When her triplet sons went off to college a few months ago, they left a closet full of shirts. She wears a different one of her boys’ shirts to school every day.
“With so many clothes left behind, there was no need for me to do any backto-school shopping,” Glennon says. “For me, it’s not just (about) wearing their hand-me-downs. It’s a fun way to keep the boys on my mind instead of missing them every day.
“Plus, I’m forced to clean out their closet.”
The idea spread to Moorestown’s George C. Baker Elementary School.
“I thought if there’s a chance for me to be more sustainable, I’m gonna take it,” Baker student Sofia Rubich says.
Sofia, a 7-year-old at the grade school, decided to join Mooney in wearing the same outfit for 100 days after reading about her in a newspaper.
“You shouldn’t be buying new clothes when you should be using the ones you have,” she says. She says her effort is making an impact on the Earth.
“It was kind of hard when I started out, because you want to make your own ideas and let your style be free,” she says. “Then the fun part about it is that it is so easy to get dressed in the morning, and I can add my own style to it with leggings and different accessories. So my style still shines through.”
Sofia and Mooney say they get one question about the project over and over. “The first thing a lot of people ask me is, ‘Do you wash it?’ ” Mooney says.
She chuckles. “Of course I wash it!”
“The fun part about it is that it is so easy to get dressed in the morning.” Sofia Rubich, 7, George C. Baker Elementary School