Sheena Matheiken decided to wear the same black dress for one year beginning in May 09 as an exercise in sustainable fashion and to raise money to send underprivileged children to school in India. We reported on her adventure in dressing through The Uniform Project in an earlier post.
Well here it has been almost a year now and Sheena is still finding new ways to wear her one basic dress. Pictured is her outfit for Thursday, April 8th. And, she has raised almost $70,000, enough to send 193 children to school!
I like Sheena’s approach to sustainable style because she makes sure the outfit meets her functional needs, (deep pockets to hold gear) speaks to her style sense (by looking through and analyzing her current wardrobe when designing the dress) and that the dress will work in all seasons (by choosing a durable cotton fabric that is trans-seasonal). And arguably most important, Sheena did not neglect the importance of fit in creating her sustainable style piece. The designer, Eliza Starbuck, who made this all happen, also made sure the dress fit Sheena perfectly.
A perfect fit makes all the difference in whether or not we reach for a garment from the closet in the morning. If we could find a practical and reasonably priced way to have our clothing custom fit, I’m convinced everyone’s closet would be a lot leaner.
Sheena has given us one possibility for creating a custom wardrobe – limit yourself to one perfect dress. Note that Sheena’s one dress is actually seven identical dresses- one for each day of the week. That practicality makes her scheme for dressing more workable.
--Your Friends at Birch
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