The Last Word On Nothing

This weekend I could not motivate to write a blog post from thin air, so I asked Our Cameron to interview me instead. Here we are.

So I saw a photo on Instagram of you wearing a pink(?!) dress. And then you said that you had worn that dress for 100 days. Wow! And what’s the deal?

I did! 100 days in a row! 

The deal is that there’s this company called Wool& that has a very clever marketing thing: If you wear one of their dresses for 100 days, they’ll give you a $100 gift certificate. Their dresses cost over $100 each so the economics of this aren’t really the point – I’ll leave the math to you. But a friend of mine was doing the company’s 30-day challenge (same deal, for a $30 gift certificate) and I thought…well, that sounds fun. So I went for it, and dove right in to the 100 days.

Their clothes are made out of wool blends, and the point of the challenge is that wool doesn’t really get stinky. At the beginning I washed it every night in the sink but by the end of the 100 days I’d go for a week or two without even thinking about washing it. It just didn’t smell bad.

Ok, so I confess, I also looked at this (had I known you were doing this, I might have been able to do it in solidarity!). But I couldn’t figure out what dress I would actually wear for 30 days. I was thinking small. How did you pick? 

It wasn’t a very sophisticated thought process. It was May in Washington, D.C., which meant I was going to be wearing it all summer, so I wanted short-sleeved or sleeveless. I obviously wanted pockets. And then one of the sleeveless dresses came in pink. I did consider getting it in a subtler color, like navy, but then I remembered that I love pink and I would probably enjoy wearing it every day. I was right!

And so wearing the same dress over and over is not too stinky–but otherwise, what’s it like to wear the same dress for 100 days? 

Amazing. Every morning I’d just…put it on. Most of my clothing decisions for the day were made. I might add some leggings or pants or a t-shirt or something. With the pockets, I always had somewhere to put my phone (or my hands). 

After the end of the 100 days I kept wearing it several times a week. It’s just so easy. Now I’d say it’s more like once a week, but I’m still wearing it. 

Oh and I did so much less laundry!

Doing less laundry sounds amazing! Did you have any funny interactions with people about your perpetual outfit?

I don’t think anyone noticed! I told a couple of friends and my parents. I told one co-worker. It’s not like I chose a subtle dress – again, it was pink. But I work from home and I live alone, and I think most of us just don’t pay that much attention to what our co-workers are wearing in Zoom calls. I probably would have been more self-conscious if I’d been going to an office every day, but even then, I suspect people don’t care that much about my clothes.

This is LWON, so . . . What does this have to do with science? Or is this just another excuse to have a mild argument? What are we arguing about, anyway?

Ooh yes, another argument! What are we arguing about? Maybe we’re arguing about how I wore the same dress for 100 days and you didn’t? 

I can think of a lot of ways the science angle could go – stinkiness and natural fibers? The psychology of whether people are paying attention to our clothes? The marketing science of getting me to spend a bunch of money on a dress so I could earn a reward to spend on…another dress? 

Ok, yes. Besides the fact that I couldn’t decide on a dress, I also felt weird about buying a dress to get money for another dress. I was telling a friend this and she said, Why don’t you just wear a dress you like for 30 days? So I did. Different dresses. But back to the science. 

And your challenge was free! But you still had to make a decision about which dress to wear every day, right? Sounds exhausting. 

How about the social science of women’s clothing? Getting dressed is really hard. There’s so many rules, and then you have to figure out the right bag and shoes and coat, too. I was so flummoxed when I had to figure out what to wear to the Kennedy Center last month, for the first time in two and a half years. (I wore the dress.)

This is totally interesting to me. Researchers are studying something called ‘enclothed cognition,’ or how clothes affect how you feel. Did this experience affect how you feel about what you wear? Or has it changed what you wear?

That dress really makes me happy. It’s so comfortable and soft and I just feel good in it. Over the last two months, since the end of the challenge, I’ve reexamined the clothes that I own. There were a lot that didn’t make me feel that good, for a variety of reasons, and they are now at the thrift store seeking new owners. 

I didn’t actually use my $100 reward to buy a new dress; I used it on a pair of stretchy wool pants that I am totally in love with – I’m wearing them right now. And I’m still thinking about buying another wool dress. Yep, their little marketing ploy worked on me, 100%. 

I think making Helen happy is a goal for any dress. Or any mild argument.

Mild arguments with you always make me happy!

Photos: Helen Fields, part of the official proof that I wore the dress for 100 days.