Modern Uniform Dressing

Eternal combination of black and white.

Continuing the topic of Lidewij Edelkoort's Anti_Fashion manifest that literally stretches across all aspects of our lives, be it directly a fashion industry in general and all the processes that have been forecasted to take place, clothing and all the shifts associated with it, lifestyle and cultural moments or gender kind of thing in terms of a modern day world. As far as I remember I did already recommend you to have a look at the manifest some time ago as I was discussing a point or two from it before. So if you haven't read it yet, I still insist you do so as it will only be helpful for your own understanding of the current industry and much more. Plus I more than guarantee the manifest will refresh your attitude towards own wardrobe as it totally brainwashed my mind and life. Changes are in action now.

So the thing is, the Anti_Fashion manifest of Edelkoort brought me to an idea to create an article for WV MAGAZINE (it is yet to be published any time soon) and speak about this new emancipation of women's wardrobe. Well, am not going to open all the details about the article before it goes live, but the writing process brought me to quite a deep research of this topic, I mean emancipation of our wardrobes (read 'shifts and changes'). And during this research I came across Matilda Kahl's case that is all about uniform dressing. For a little note, Matilda is an art director at Saatchi & Saatchi, who actually made a case by dressing exactly the same way to work every day for 3 (or 4?) years now - white shirt and black pants. And it's not like Kahl's employers brought it to her notion, it's Matilda herself who got tired of stressing out every morning while putting a new astonishingly creative outfit together.

But what's so special about this case and Kahl's uniform thing? I bet that's your question now. If we are speaking directly about this suit kind of thing, then I believe it's about the power of a suit, primarily pants one. And a power of a white (well, not necessarily) shirt. Shoes? In my opinion, in this case shoes don't take a leading role, although female wardrobe is getting affected more by masculine type of shoes, as well as sports-inspired ones. Have you ever tracked changes that happen in your mind, behavior and even self-esteem when you wear a pant suit and/or a classic shirt? And again, I think suit and shirt don't necessarily need to come together, and still the two just change ones outfit and day near to completely. So whenever I have a blazer, classic pants (or both together as a suit) or a strict kind of shirt included in my outfit, I immediately feel myself much more of a business type. I mean I might not look creative-much (refer it to peacocking if you want), but it's my mind that overtakes this role, just like in Matilda's case. And it totally meets my fashion intellectual self-strategy, you know.