Uniforms

[white_hart]

A knitting designer I follow on Twitter, Karie Westermann, tweeted last night:

I'm really fascinated by minimalist capsule wardrobe plans. I mean, yay for create 45 looks out of 5 pieces, but I use my clothes to play with identity & so my wardrobe is full of weirdness.

This made me think a bit, and I realised that I am the complete opposite: I could have 45 pieces of clothing in my wardrobe (I probably do, or even more than that), and I'd just end up making versions of the exact same outfit out of them, and not wearing the ones that didn't fit that. What that outfit is has changed over the years; in the early to mid 00s, it was trouser suits, and then even though I thought I was playing with clothes and having fun with my appearance I was basically wearing A-line skirts with fitted tops, and then jersey dresses. Now I've stopped wanting to spend time thinking about what to wear and it's trousers and jersey tops (frequently stripy) all hte way. I still own quite a few of the jersey dresses, and even some of the A-line skirts (though the trouser suits are long gone), but I don't wear them because they don't feel like me any more.

Apparently my sense of who I am is very much wrapped up in having a consistent look.

Comments

[nostalgia]

My style is less exciting than it used to be due to the limitations of finding fun clothes in plus sizes, especially since I mostly shop in Asda or charity shops, but the past year or two I've been spending more on t-shirts with slogans and stuff on them and it's really helped me feel like my clothes belong to me more. I've got band t-shirts and one that says "This Machine Kills Fascists" and one with "Now I'll Never Know If I Was Right" in a sad font over Adric's broken badge, which is the one that started all this for me.

[white_hart]

I am acquiring a small collection of geeky t-shirts which I mostly wear in the summer when I don’t need a cardigan over them - so far, two Moomin ones and two from the Buffering the Vampire Slayer podcast (one says Smash The Demon Lizard Patriarchy and the other one says Be The Thing That Monsters Have Nighmares About). I need at least one Doctor Who one, though!

[oracne]

May I ask where you found the Moomin shirts? (I am in the U.S.).

[white_hart]

They were from Uniqlo about 3 years ago (but I think they often do Moomin collections).

[girlyswot]

I recommend eBay for the acquisition of fun clothes in plus-sizes at relatively low prices. I mean, you get some duds, obviously, but it's definitely more interesting than the limited high street options.

[nostalgia]

Ooh! Good idea!

[oracne]

Alas, poor Adric.

[nostalgia]

Now he'll never know if he was right ;__;

[oracne]

Consistency is nice. It feels good to have control over how one looks and not to have to constantly reconsider.

[white_hart]

This is it. It saves worrying about what I want to look like on any given day, because what I look like is a constant.