When I was in middle school, I attended a public school that was experimenting with a uniform. However, the administrators couldn’t make up their minds—was it worth having, or not? They went back and forth. (I know this because both my parents were teachers at this school. Yeah, the other kids made fun of me quite a bit.) In the end, they decided that a uniform would be on the horizon for future students, but students attending when I was there would adhere to a dress code. Shorts and skirts above the knee were forbidden (and as a long-legged girl, I had a hell of a time finding skirts that adhered to the length requirement—I was forever getting sent to the counselor’s office for disciplinary action). All shirts had to be tucked in, even sweaters. Pants had to be worn with a belt, and some teachers enforced this whether the pants had belt loops or not. It was utterly ridiculous, and even most of the faculty at the school agreed that it did little to aid the educational environment; we wasted a lot of time making sure that everyone was in dress code that we really could have spent doing something useful.
In college, I had to buy suits and office wear for my student leadership positions and some aspects of my job. And while I wore my professional attire grudgingly whenever I had an important meeting or was possibly going to be photographed, most of my time spent in my office was time spent in school clothes—vintage clothing, shirts that were too trendy to wear with suit pieces, short dresses, and in some cases whatever I’d worn to the gym. The flexibility in dress codes was important to me because it meant that I didn’t have to run home to my apartment and change after I got out of class–I could go straight into my responsibilities and Get Things Done without wasting any time. Of course, I could have gotten around that and looked professional all the time, including in class, but does anyone ever really like wearing a suit? Is it comfortable for anyone? (Seriously, comment and let me know what you think.)
So, when Erin Doland over at Unclutterer posted last week on choosing a personal uniform as a means of avoiding expending energy on deciding what to wear, I was surprised to have a perfect idea: the wrap dress.
[courtesy of Maggie Chen@World]
Invented by Diane von Furstenberg in the seventies, the wrap dress has been done over and over in a host of lengths, cuts, and fabrics. DVF’s versions start in the hundreds of dollars, but knockoffs abound—she’s famously sued Target and Forever 21 for making direct copies of her designs.
The style of the dress itself, though, is versatile enough to wear in almost any situation, given a few alterations. A three-quarter sleeve, A-line, collared version in jersey knit worn with heels or ballerina flats works well in a business environment or a restaurant; a twill or taffeta full-skirted version paired with jewelry and great lipstick works for fancy parties; a floor-length sleeveless version with espadrille wedges or gladiator sandals is perfect on the beach.
The fact that it’s a single-piece outfit makes it conducive to uniformity. If you really, truly wanted to wear the same thing every day of your life, you could purchase seven identical wraps, two pairs of shoes, and a purse, and you’d never have to worry about whether or not anything matched—yet you wouldn’t have to worry about looking dull, boring, or unattractive.
Being a clotheshorse in addition to being staunchly against any type of uniform or dress code policy, I’m disinclined to do this. Still…I’m finding myself drooling over sewing patterns for wrap dresses of all styles and stripes.
Do any of you guys have a signature outfit? How much time, on average, do you use daily to pick out your clothing? If you had to wear something all the time, what would it be?
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