Do You Have To Choose A Uniform?
Navigating personal style without abandoning free will!!!!
***Before we get started today, many many many of you have reached out to ask how to help in my hometown of Minneapolis, MN right now. If you would like to help, here are organizations, both formal and informal that I trust.
The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota Immigrant Rapid Response Fund. Jewish Community Action - a mutual aid organization both of my parents volunteer with that I KNOW has a large volunteer base. Here is a list of local mutual aid funds, literally pick any of them - people are scared to leave their homes. They need food and supplies. Here is an Instagram with the emails and phone numbers to CEOs of large companies that are working with ICE. Email them. Copy, paste, schedule send, on repeat. Here is a link with a script for calling your senators (very important if you live in a red state!!!) Here is a link to my best friend from high school’s community response fundraiser. She has been out grocery shopping and delivering food and supplies to her at-risk neighbors for a week straight.***
While sitting in the audience at Lincoln Center’s new (MUST SEE!) musical Ragtime, I leaned over to my seatmate, friend of 5 Things Julie B., and said: I love Emma Goldman’s outfit, Comme Des Garcons? We giggled but…not no!! And then shortly thereafter, the white scalloped collar on Sarah’s floral housedress spoke to me (ehh emmm Miu Miu!) Then there was Father’s expedition tweed jacket that was just…flawless. As I do with everything I see, I started picking apart what I liked, what I would want to wear, how I would adjust things. As it turns out, I could envision myself in a lot of these pieces!!!!!
Each of these characters represents extremely different social spectrums during New York’s progressive era of the early 1900s: an (immigrant) anarchist, a young, black, unmarried mother and an old-moneyed, status-quo-supporting white man. Never ever, would any of these characters experiment with the dress code of the other…their “uniforms” being tied inherently to their identities.
At this point are you saying, I am not here for a theater review!? OK OK. My point is that I am still thinking about the show and the costumes and how I enjoyed the references of so many of these pieces in today’s fashion landscape. And it is very much not 1910 at the moment (though feeling more so by the second? For someone else’s newsletter…) We can wear what we please for the most part, today. Billionaires wear sweatpants. People living paycheck to paycheck are buying designer bags on payment plans. So how do we create our style identities when the world is our oyster?
It can make getting dressed harder, with so many options (not that I’m complaining) but also makes it exhilarating. Some days I wake up wanting to wear a navy sack with intentional wrinkles à la CDG and other days I want to be my preppiest, most All American self in Double RL khakis and a perfectly broken in chambray. Other times I want to wear jeans that suck me in and bitchy heels and a droopy top that lets a little lace show in the décolletage. The thing is, these are all me. And while I LOVE the study of uniform and the idea of uniform dressing, I don’t want to be boxed in. I don’t want to give up any prints or silks or or argyles or loafers or colors to feel at home in my clothes.
The trick then is twofold: How do I create a sense of personal style with all of these different moods running through my closet??? And then literally, how do I fit all these moods in my NYC sized closet!!! 😬
So I spent this past week reflecting a bit on how I try to maintain a personal sense of style without losing my love of experimentation and embracing what is new. How do I maintain the freedom to wear what my mood dictates in the morning, a sense of self and an open mind. ALL AT THE SAME TIME!?
The way this is going to work is this. I put together a bunch of (January coded) outfits for different occasions in my week - morning errands, work, dinner, cocktail events, etc. - and give it my best effort to create a through line that connects each to the next, even if they may appear to have nothing in common. We’ll discuss the little details that make them all a part of me. This is not necessarily going to be YOUR personal style (though I am here to inspire, so take what you want from these ideas, please!!) but an example of how to use this exercise to harness your intuition.
We will start with the outfit above, that I wore to a work breakfast on Thursday. A simple grey v-neck sweater and ribbed tank tucked into men’s tweed pants. The big pants are offset by wearing a sheer underlayer that comes a little lower on the neck. A little bit of collarbone gives the whole thing a feminine edge. Finished with a black 70s-style boot instead of a sneaker to lean into that polished, grown woman thing too. A western belt scrunching it all is that little bit of that HUH? moment I strive for.
But take those same pants and Saint Laurent-ify them with a black leather belt, a lace trimmed tank and magenta jacket with shoulder pads and you can take these pants out to cocktails. The strangeness of the pants in this mix feels more me - more unexpected - than jeans for the dead of winter. She definitely doesn’t feel like the same girl as the first photo. But I still feel at home in these layers.
Speaking of jeans though, it is the first trouser type I reach for to go to dinner because I’m usually in a rush and the babysitter is here and I just want to feel secured. I like to feel held in in the evening when I’m more likely to reach for a heel and they do that without needing to think too hard. At dinner last week (to which I wore the blazer above with matching pencil skirt) I tried explaining today’s idea to my table. When asked to describe what I think my personal style is, I replied: When I walk into a room, I want to fit in. I want to feel comfortable and make the people I’m with feel comfortable. But on closer inspection…something should appear off, different, thoughtful. I want you to have to hunt for it.
This is the best way I can explain the outfit above. Sure, it’s jeans and a blazer. But then again, it’s a drapey silk blazer with a shoulder that carries a statement. The t-shirt is sheer, revealing a little bit of a bra outline underneath. The jeans are rigid and the boots a nylon stretchy material with a toe best described as an attempt at Carolyn Bessette. Every piece makes me feel special and adds to the overall texture. But it isn’t screaming 📣I’M SPECIAL📣 at everyone else.
If you were to ask, what is the outfit I reach for most these days? It’s this. I wear these “daytime” jeans and this Phoebe Philo sweater above with some form of a boot two or three days a week. You can see how she is the same girl as the tight jeans/blazer above her: A little bit of menswear inspiration. A bit Americana (white tee in the top picture, Western boots in the lower) and a “trendy” jean: bootcut —> barrel. I feel like myself and also like I belong in the here and now. I don’t feel rigid in my sense of style identity in this but also feel very much myself.
Not to say, I can’t be rigid sometimes…if you were to ask my mother what my truest style self is she would say this photo below.
I’ve gravitated toward a version of this since I could dress myself. I am so happy in a literal…UNIFORM!! But this is not necessarily where fashion is in this moment. I will always be a skirt person, but we are very much in an era of pants. So how do I make my very skirty self feel at home in a sea of super cool slacks?!
For one, I could relax it a bit. I could layer this slouchy tunic over my favorite pleated skirt, throw on a snazzy western belt (again, very me!! Maybe your best belt self is a burgundy studded guy!? You decide!), and a cowboy boot (also an element of uniform, just a very different one.)
The mix still feels like me, but just a little less uptight for this sexier, slinkier fashion moment. Add a wool bomber in place of a blazer and the whole thing is now much less uptown tween after school at the diner (my spirit animal.)
In the same vein, all of these elements in this photo above are in are my comfort zone of a uniform. A collared shirt under a simple knit with a plaid skirt. But I’ve updated this to feel very Miu Miu 2026 with a peter pan collar and ribbed wooly tights all fitting a bit haphazardly to make it a bit more eccentric. Also, the skirt is a silky crepe. It’s flowy and offsets the crisp cotton and structured loafer.
I can take myself out of my uniform (while staying in my comfort zone of a midi skirt) by toughening up the silk with a big chunky workboot and black sweater. And then add a bit of fun with a contrast printed coat (you could also just do a big black coat and a leopard sweater. Fun!
For a party or concert or general gathering of girlfriends, maybe I could just flip the script and make the skirt the wild part of the outfit…still in an A-line skirt, my most flattering shape. But in a leopard chenille!??! This is Alaia from a few seasons ago that you’ve seen many times in this letter. But I’m making it feel new here with a baby tee…all the rage these days. Usually I like something a bit more complete on top, but this feels ok with a heavier textured skirt, opaque tights and comfortable boots.
I could even go TRENDIER and pull my tights up above the skirt waistline a bit. Very Calvin, no? It still all feels like me. But I’m paying attention…
And about that little baby tee…this is my other most loved outfit lately. And while ruminating on why I think it works, I realized it’s the scale of the sweatshirt. Its mini. Fitted. It ensures the men’s style trousers (worn a size too big and scrunched at the waist…are you sensing a theme?) do not overwhelm. I’m keeping a feminine form while still trying to say: I’m functional, I’m comfortable, I am a little preppy, a little bit fashiony (thanks to a cashmere tee and our favorite boots) and resolutely me.
A fitted wool coat doubles down on this - the cropped sleeve super feminine, the shape tidy and the structure a formal balance to the informal layers underneath. It’s all a big mix - nothing is screaming.
And while this next outfit is completely different than the one just above, she feels like the same girl. She’s in a skirt but one that is not limiting her mobility. The layers are a bit happenstance. The boots are the little bit of toughness the skirt needs. The cropped jacket shape is very of the moment but because it is old, it gives off ‘where did you get that’ at the same time. And each thing quietly compliments the rest. And at the end of the day, I think that is where my uniform lies.
I have a pretty good understanding of my style and uniform. I’d hope so, considering its my job to help others find theirs! But what this experiment in trying it all on and really dissecting the layers gives me (and hopefully will give you) is finding the clothes that make us feel so good we can forget about the clothes. To me, the idea of uniform is finding and wearing the clothes that allow me to go about my day feeling confident, and communicate my values without saying a word.
My uniform is actually grounded in taking hyper functional ideas and mixing them up. Taking the traditional idea of uniforms and making them anything but. What is yours??
Yours TRULY,
Becky
Thank you for giving all those resources. Fashion is fun but when Americans are being murdered by people working for the government, it's hard to focus on anything else.
Thank you so much for the suggestions of where to donate. I prefer to give locally and it helps to have someone who knows the local community