I’d fully intended to update a lot earlier, not nearly 5 weeks into this adventure, but honestly? It’s just not been a big deal. At all. Granted, it’s summer, and most days, I’m home, so the only people that really see me in the dress are my family or the handful of people I run into on my errands to the grocery store or the library. After the first couple days, I quickly realized how silly announcing my intentions with The Dress sounded and felt, so I’ve really only mentioned it once …other than here, that is. After all, one of the main points of the experiment is to fully realize just how little what we wear matters to anyone other than ourselves. People just don’t notice, on the whole. Or, if they do, it’s not enough of a pressing matter to mention or question it. Suddenly, all those mornings staring into the abyss of a closet full of dozens of things that no longer fit or that I don’t feel “in the mood” to wear feel downright silly. Dare I say, a waste of time? One of the biggest things I’m enjoying on this adventure is the removal of one of the first decisions of my day. Sure, I can dress things up with a sweater or jewelry or a scarf or shoes or whatever, but it’s incredibly freeing to just wake up, shower, throw on the dress, and be on with my day.
And travel… the other huge benefit. Some might think of this as an obstacle, traveling during the 100 days. How do you manage all of the places and climates and occasions with only one piece of clothing? Carefully, and with a minimum of luggage. Our family traveled to Washington for a niece’s wedding, for example. This was before the current heatwave they’re experiencing, but it was plenty warm nonetheless. Comfortable compared to 112 degrees (F), but warm. I packed along a sweater for the plane and air-conditioned places, but my short-sleeved lightweight wool jersey dress did just fine. I threw a small bottle of Eucalan no-rinse wool wash in my liquids bag and washed the dress in the sink a couple times over the week we were there. Washed it before bed, squeezed out the water, rolled it in a towel, hung it in the shower, and it was usually dry enough to wear by morning. I did pack along a t-shirt (black, the same lightweight wool jersey material) and denim shorts to wear in case of wardrobe malfunction or emergency (one morning the dress wasn’t quite dry enough in the morning). The shorts came in handy when we did a quick hike one evening. I tied up the dress, 80’s t-shirt style, and it was perfectly workable. The t-shirt doubled as pajamas, or, as I discovered a few days in, a way to vary things up –wear the t-shirt over the dress.
Creative constraint is another reason I was attracted to this whole adventure. Example: how do you dress up a solid plain blue knit t-shirt dress enough to wear to a wedding? Solution: I packed along a wrap skirt that’s sat in my closet far too much. It’s made of recycled saris, a mix of blue and pink with some metallic threads woven in. I wore that over the dress, added in a pair of earrings I bought years ago in Peru that I don’t wear much because they’re a little too dangly and fancy for everyday, and it worked fine. Besides, who’s supposed to be looking at me, anyway, right? The objective was to blend in appropriate. Bonus: the skirt is reversible, so I could wear it again for church if I wanted. So with the skirt, I had two options –though on Sunday I chose to pull out one of the two scarves I packed with the sweater. Blue (the color of my dress) harmonizes with all of my shoes and pretty much everything else in my closet, so I have plenty of layering options. As it was, I packed for the whole week in just one large school-sized backpack, with a little room to spare thanks to packing cubes. And no, nobody said anything about the dress the whole week. Pretty sure they noticed the repeat, but nobody said anything (which may or may not say something about how many of my family reads my blog…). So, today is Day 35, and all is going well. The only thing I’m questioning about the whole experiment is whether black would’ve been a little easier to disguise than blue.
