To living like it’s going out of fashion

My hesitant hand heats up the handle. I brace myself for the wreckage of this morning’s storm, waiting in front of the door as I ease it open. Clothing hangers, splayed out like footprints, lead me to the debris. Gray socks lie limp over my bed frame and black socks still cling together in a ball on my bed — both exiled in favor of the brown ones that matched my jacket. On my desk sit clumps of beaded bracelets and the gold necklace I abandoned because I couldn’t free it from its fairy-knotted chain. Soiled shoes like a pile of rubble spill out from the corner of my closet. From wall to wall is a fallen domino trail of toppled-over gourmand lotions, spray deodorants and a violent perfume used to pickle me in the scent of someone who has their shit together. And, in the eye of the storm, lie all the outfits I concocted in my head the previous night, which turned rotten in the unforgiving morning light.  

Facing these ruins has become my daily dose of humility. More and more often, when clearing up these messes, I can’t help but ask myself if the end — these impersonal outfits — really justify the means. And to think, just a few months prior, I was gushing at the freedoms I now scoff at. 

In high school, I never felt allowed to explore clothing, not because of any explicit rules, but because of the implicit standards imposed at home. My parents are modest, practical people, so I wore modest, practical clothing. I only ever went shopping with them and everything was vetted before it was bought. According to a classmate during my sophomore year of high school, I dressed like a teacher; from her tone I gathered that wasn’t a compliment. Yet, as I grew older — getting my driver’s license and starting to work — I began to explore the idea of fashion outside of the definitions my parents taught me. Once I began my first year at the University of Michigan, I was able to throw myself headfirst into gleeful experimentation. Fashion was freedom.

But anything in excess can become debilitating. As I trudge through my second semester, I find myself wondering if this liberation has become a cage in itself. Putting together an outfit does not rear nearly as much satisfaction as it once did. My curiosity has plateaued. My inhibitions are re-cemented. That childlike joy of creation has dwindled into a faint idea I keep thinking I can “style” myself back into. Putting on clothes has just become a chore I feel obligated to complete; it’s another thing to add to my ever-growing to-do list. Fashion is fatigue.

So, I decided I needed a reset. Perhaps, by giving myself a break from the pressures of presentation, I could identify what made clothing feel so freeing to begin with and learn how to be grateful for it once again. Thus, I embarked on a journey: a cleansing. I set out to wear the same outfit for 10 days straight. 

***

Day 1

If I thought picking an outfit day to day was a hassle, I wasn’t prepared to pick the outfit I’d wear for more than a week. I wanted to make sure that this outfit worked for most occasions so practicality didn’t become an overbearing concern — clothes that could be worn in class, when on the move and in play rehearsals.

Initially, I looked through my basics hoping to create a Steve Jobs-esque outfit (he was notable for wearing the same black turtleneck and blue jeans every day). I’ve amassed a variety of black shirts over the years, but none seemed right. It was no easier when deciding on pants. Jeans wouldn’t be appropriate for rehearsals but leggings are a nuisance, only to be tolerated in small doses. Eventually, after it seemed a small gale hit my room, I decided on the outfit: a long-sleeve dark navy shirt, wide-legged brownish-gray pants and my go-to black shoes. 

I said goodbye to my gems, jewels and fancy fragrances, opting for bareness and unscented products. To truly immerse myself in this experiment, I wanted my outward appearance to become more than an afterthought in my life; I took away all semblance of choice. As I went about my life that first day, I was taunted by the fact that this could be the easiest it’d get. How would I feel tomorrow, when the experiment truly began? 

Day 2

I naively believed I’d accounted for everything this experiment could throw at me, but I didn’t expect the almost instantaneous longing for creative expression through fashion. Not even days prior, this same expressivity felt cumbersome. However, once I took it away from myself, I realized how much I appreciated it. 

Now, to be clear, I’m no fashionista. I don’t subscribe to any aesthetics or have a carefully curated style. By any stretch of the imagination, my closet is basic. Yet, as a symptom of my upbringing in an education-focused immigrant household, just getting to choose these basics is a freedom I didn’t know I desired. My parents truly did their best and always took great pride and effort in ensuring my siblings and I had good clothes, but it was always functionality over fashion. With this experiment, I returned to the same framework of viewing clothing that I grew up in. I have put myself back in that same box. It’s much smaller than I remember. 

Day 4

Putting on the same clothes morning after morning has twisted my sense of time. It feels as if I am reliving the same day over and over again — never-ending, just pausing. I am in a purgatory of the mind. This warped timeline has made me attuned to how much of daily conversation is centered around clothing. It is an easy icebreaker. You can “that’s so cute” your way into a friendship. Our outfits can make silent statements, often being the first things we “say” to others. I am artsy. I am sporty. I am casual. Aspects of personality are reflected in what pieces are put together to create a representation from the outside in. But this outfit I now don every day is a boneless sentence, a dependent clause I can’t make stand on its own. All my outfit said was, I am. But as the days went on, I had to convince myself that there is beauty in this simplicity just as there is beauty in the outfit.  

Day 5

There was a quiet intimacy that I developed with these clothes. To wear the same outfit for 10 days requires refreshing, tending to and some good old TLC: Two-in-the-Morning Laundry Chaos. I became reintroduced to the contours of the cloth. I studied the shirt’s gentle ribbing. The neckline, the way it doesn’t cling or slouch but instead remains, buttery soft. A stark contrast to the pants that I wrestled out of my laundry basket, it looked like a crumpled paper bag, pruned flesh. Brown and tired. I broke out my iron and began working out all the wrinkles in the scrunched fabric, like knots in a weary back. My motions were muscle memory and it brought me back to my senior year of high school. 

I am sitting in a sea of food wrappers, tossed clothes (dirty and clean alike), homework and my own depravity. School starts in less than 20 minutes, I have a 10-minute drive and yet I sit on the floor of my room ironing now-invisible wrinkles out of my shirt. It feels like I am melting away all the mounting stress caving in on me with the press of the silver plate. It feels like everything will be okay because I can wear a smooth shirt and pretend to be put together, at least for a little while. It feels like control. My younger brother waits for me by the door wearing sweatpants too short for his too-long limbs and a tattered hoodie. And he doesn’t care. Though gendered societal standards are shifting towards inclusivity, one can’t ignore the difference between the two of us. For a boy to wear the same things every day is a non-factor, an honorable show of his focus on less shallow, banal things such as clothing. But for a girl, to wear the same things is a question of one’s femininity, one’s value. Thus, I continue to press away the ugly ripples in my life. 

In the present, I ironed my pants. And for once, all it felt like was ironing pants. 

Day 6

There is a strange illogical fear of being “caught” outfit repeating. I hadn’t let myself admit these feelings, as I wanted to believe I was immune to such an elitist mindset. But over the days, I allowed my outfit to be accessorized by an undercurrent of embarrassment, ebbing and flowing from the forefront of my mind. And in doing this experiment, I noticed that I’ve always unwittingly fed into that perspective — manifested in the self-imposed duty to cycle through different clothing combinations and create the illusion of variety. 

But the tide always receded from the shore when in the Mosher-Jordan Dining Hall. The constant buzz of people made it impossible to tell me from a hole in the wall. I loved it. During the dining hall’s rush hour, I was able to snag a seat and was slipping off my winter coat when I spotted a classmate at the next table over. Instinctively, I pulled the coat back on and tried to disappear. A tide of shame swung back out and pulled my feet from under me. I was overheating from the insulation of my thick coat and my reluctant embarrassment. But, more than anything, I was pissed at myself. Why did I put the coat back on? It was irrational. That classmate had seen this outfit before and would see it again. Hell, they could see it even as I shrunk inside my coat. 

What was I even afraid of? Was it the negative connotations of being seen in the same clothes? Society embroiders a nasty scarlet A onto those who don’t have the privilege of a breadth of clothing options. A for abnormal, abject, abysmal. Or, was it the fear of being perceived in general? I tried to reach for an answer but felt myself slipping away as the tide swallowed me whole.

Day 8

I remember an incident in Mosher-Jordan from a few months prior. Someone dropped a stack of dishes on the floor. The sounds of smashing ceramic were drowned out only by the seconds of deafening silence that followed as everyone in purview stopped to gawk at the kid, blushing red as he rushed to clean the mess. But as I try to recall who was around me, what I was doing at that moment or even what the kid looked like, I remember nothing. And I certainly don’t remember what he was wearing.

***
As the days count down, I have grown to love the outfit I once felt neutral about. It no longer just says, I am. It also says I am powerful, unbothered, confident. And the best part: These attributes shine from the inside out for the first time. But as I stand at the cusp of day 11, I find myself feeling nervous. I am basking in how much time and energy I save without planning, adjusting and thinking about my clothing. I no longer have any obligations to press, primp, powder, polish or present myself in any particular way. In doing this experiment, I have come to discover that I never truly did. I can’t wait to get back to expressing myself through clothing, but I’m not sure I’m ready to just fully dive back into those crashing waves. And I don’t have to. I can take my time. Fashion is fluid. Fashion is fulfilling. Fashion is whatever I want it to be.

Statement Columnist Oummu Kabba can be reached at oummu@umich.edu.

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