A Very Honest Outfit

Mango sweater
Mavi jeans (c/o)
Oak + Fort mules (similar)
Sezane handbag
Mango sunglasses
Muru Jewellery necklace (c/o)
Keltie Leanne Designs ring (c/o) (similar)
Mango earrings
Lineage House hairpin (similar)
Location: Minneapolis Passport Agency – Minneapolis, Minnesota

I seriously debated throwing these photos away. In fact, I seriously debated whether to bother taking them at all. The weather was humid on this Saturday morning, threatening rain. We were in Minneapolis, and I hadn’t packed an umbrella. The absence of anything substantial to keep me dry forced me to make practical considerations, rather than fashion-related ones, when I got dressed. My outfit was not what I planned. It wasn’t “special” enough to be worth documenting, I thought at first. But then I changed my mind. It is entirely too easy to get wrapped up in sharing only the best of the best. When we have the ability to curate our lives and our spaces, presenting them as we see fit, it’s only natural to want to put our best selves forward. Especially if we already have a tendency to set perfectionist exacting standards for ourselves.

But it’s worth breaking the cycle of highlight after highlight and sharing the mundane at times. Life isn’t a series of highlights, after all. It is a series of mundane weeks and months, punctuated by moments of excitement. And we dress for it accordingly.

This is a totally honest outfit. And when I say honest outfit, I mean that these are the clothes I default to, over and over, on average days when my primary concern is comfort or practicality. Aside from the fact that my hair is shorter, these photos could just as easily have been taken on our 2009 European tour as on our 2019 trip to Minneapolis. Sweater, skinny jeans, crossbody bag, flats. The formula never fails me. (Sometimes, in the summer, I swap the sweater for a tank top.) The sweaters and jeans change as old versions wear out, replaced by new iterations from different brands, but the styles always remain the same.

That isn’t to say that the outfits I normally showcase are dishonest. But I primarily showcase the best of what I wear; the outfits I dream up in dull moments spent scrolling Pinterest and then wait for the perfect day to debut. It makes sense. After all, if I didn’t, this outfit would pop up over and over, in slightly different variations. I would be just as bored photographing it repeatedly as you would all be by seeing it time and again.

I love my outfit list. There is nothing more satisfying to me than coming up with an amazing outfit made up of clothes I already own. My belief in the power of clothing to non-verbally convey who we are to the world is strong. But I don’t have the time, energy or need to convey a powerful message to the world every day. I work long hours. When I’m getting ready to go out, I’m often in a rush, and the considerations I make when hurrying to pull on clothes are generally more along the lines of, I don’t want to get soaked when I go outside or, I’m having a big dinner, I should probably wear pants with stretch than, I am a fabulous modern woman who rejects patriarchal ideas about styles that are flattering and feminine.

This is an honest outfit in the sense that I just grabbed clothes out of my suitcase and put them on, like anyone else would. (The hoodie I later stole from Ian when I got cold did not make the photos, but I will own up to the fact that I wore it for the second half of the day.) And, despite having simply gotten dressed like an average person, I posed for pictures, anyway. If life is a series of mundane weeks and months, punctuated by moments of excitement, then it stands to reason that our outfits are a series of ordinary, thrown-together variations on a theme punctuated by moments of fabulous sartorial originality.

In all seriousness, I can’t believe this has been my go-to uniform for over a decade! Tell me – do you have an outfit you go to year after year (after year)? Or has your go-to outfit changed over time?

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