Unlike Matilda Kahl, I enjoy making decisions on what to wear every morning
|
Version 0 of 1. Would your mornings be easier if you could wear the same clothes to work each day? Matilda Kahl, an art director at Saatchi & Saatchi in New York, has caught the eye of European and US media outlets because she has done just that. For three years, she has worn a pair of black trousers and a white shirt to the office. And yes, the trousers are always the same trousers (though she owns several pairs) and the shirts are always the same shirts. There is no variation in sleeve length, collar style, placket or pleat, because any variation would create the sort of micro-choices she wants to escape: should I wear short sleeves today, the shirt with the vents or the one with the darts or the pocket or the epaulettes or … ? Oh sod this, I’ll wear something else! Maybe this is why Kahl’s Instagram feed is full of pictures of her on weekends or holidays wearing floaty dresses, coloured jackets and a leopard-print bikini. “To state the obvious,” Kahl wrote in Harpers Bazaar, “a work uniform is not an original idea. There’s a group of people that have embraced this way of dressing for years – they call it a suit.” Actually, Kahl’s approach is stricter than that. Men have traditionally sought to break the monotony of a suit with tie and socks. But Kahl has closed that loophole with a sort of shoelace she ties daily beneath her collar. She calls it “a handmade leather rosette”. It is her only permitted accessory. Uniforms are open to interpretation: just observe any gang of schoolkids. Steve Jobs wore blue Levi’s and a black turtleneck, but the jeans were prone to difference. They faded and bagged, and looked unidentical in each shot, as if his wardrobe was full of pairs all ageing at different rates. Anna Wintour is known for her fringed bob, but even that has evolved in almost imperceptible increments, lightening over the decades with fashion or dye or sunshine. Angela Merkel wears suits that are cut the same but in a rainbow of shades. Most adopters of uniform, even Barack Obama or Mark Zuckerberg, grant themselves a little latitude. Kahl’s only leeway is that on hot summer days she may wear a black skirt: it is the most funless of exceptions. More than a uniformist, she is a stylist. I actually look forward to the four minutes of indecision in the morning, in which the kids are shut out of the room, locked out if necessary, while I get dressed. The wardrobe is a magic box. I like opening the doors to the idea of possibility. It doesn’t really matter that the sense of possibility is quickly succeeded by the recognition of familiar items with limited scope for reconfiguration. It’s still nice to look out the window, see the day, and choose something to wear. At any one time there are probably only four or five salient outfits hanging there. The choices boil down to a few favourites, the sartorial equivalent of spag bol Thursdays or fish Fridays. Kahl says she embarked on her uniform after stressing in the morning over the right thing to wear, worrying about skirt length or colour, and what went with what. I sympathise, and it’s her choice, but I enjoy those deliberations. It recalls a time when there was more time. And if I get it wrong – I have not found the consequences of this to be too dire – I’ll be back there tomorrow with another chance. |