#4: Lizzie McGuire, You Are an Outfit Repeater
What's our society's obsession with not re-wearing our own clothes?
There’s a stigma behind outfit repeating that I’ve never quite understood.
Eating the same meal once a week because it’s delicious (looking at you spicy vodka pasta) is fine, but wearing the same outfit once a week because it’s stylish is lazy. Rewatching a beloved movie over and over is comforting, rewearing an outfit over and over is uninspired. Why can we return to the outfits we love without cultural criticism?
Today, outfit repeating is even more passé because of social media documentation, but I’ve been fascinated with this concept long before I had Instagram or Facebook. I first recall becoming aware of it while watching the The Lizzie McGuire Movie in 2003. In the movie, Lizzie is called out for wearing a recycled outfit to her graduation ceremony by Kate, the school bully. Lizzie then retorts that being an outfit rememberer is just as pathetic as being an outfit repeater.
The word “pathetic” stood out to me at the time because it was so harsh. Pathetic literally means inadequate or of low standards. Was rewearing clothes I owned and liked “pathetic”?
The following year I was personally called out for being an outfit repeater. A girl at my elementary school asked what I’d be wearing to the school dance and I said my glitter camouflage pants (inspired by the Cheetah Girls, of course) to which she replied, “With your same red top?” Apparently I wore that outfit combination a lot.
I remember feeling silly after that interaction, creating an unspoken rule that I would only try to wear the exact same outfit once a month—going as far as to write down my school outfits weekly. I’d source outfit inspiration from magazines, TV shows, and clothing catalogs on Sunday nights, trying to squeeze the most outfit creations out of my wardrobe for the week ahead. I didn’t always love the results, but that was less important than repetition.
I’m not the only one obsessed with this weird unspoken societal rule. “Outfit repeating” has been searched for over 6 million times in Goole and “Can I repeat an outfit?” over 40 thousand times.
In 2019, a Vogue writer interviewed fashion editors about the taboo nature of outfit repeating, musing that maybe people think it’s faux pas because they assume the outfit repeater’s clothes are unclean. The idea that someone could be deemed as “unclean” for simply rewearing clothes within a week’s time frame doesn’t really feel logical to me. Washing machines exist and even if your clothes aren’t freshly laundered, you’re probably ok rewearing them. What does feel logical to me is that conspicuous consumption is tied to cleanliness and worthiness which, quite frankly, sucks.
Our culture is so obsessed with the fake problem of outfit repeating that we’ve even come up with fake solutions for it. A capsule wardrobe, aka curating a closet full of pieces that can all be paired together differently, is one example. This type of wardrobe suggests you constantly find a new combination for your belongings, like a mall math equation—blue top with floral skirt, floral skirt with white cardigan, white cardigan with blue jeans, blue jeans with blue top.
Minimalism, only purchasing paired down basics that aren’t necessarily distinguishable, is another solution.
Silicon Valley has have even tried to re-brand outfit repeating. Steve Jobs famously wore the same outfit combination daily because he said it was practical and one less thing to think about. Many CEOs continue follow suit today. It’s interesting to me that tech moguls wouldn’t just pick out five different outfits they liked to wear for the work week. Isn’t that just as practical and time saving as wearing one? We either need to curate a new look daily or succumb to a uniform of black turtlenecks and mom jeans?
I’ve also tried to trick myself into thinking I wasn’t outfit repeating for practical purposes, not societal ones. I rent all my formalwear and if you asked me why I might say it’s easier and more affordable than buying. But is it really more affordable to rent a $60 dress and wear it once versus buying a $60 dress and wearing it again? The truth is, I hate wearing the same dress to more than one event because that dress is usually posted on social media.
I’m planning my own wedding now which means I have less time to spend worrying about my outfits and even less money to spend on buying new ones. It’s forced me to reach for the same outfit formulas over and over again despite seeing the same people and *gasp* despite having said outfits documented on social. It’s been refreshing. It’s been easy. My Instagram has not been shut down because my feed is filled with the same black top and jeans.
Outfit repeating hasn’t made me feel uninspired, lazy, or most offensively, uncleanly.
On the contrary, outfit repeating has been a helpful practice in noticing what I actually like to wear from my closet—bodysuits, blazers, graphic tees—and what I actually don’t like to wear—trendy blouses, printed denim, skin-tight dresses. It’s helped me become a more mindful shopper when I do make a purchase, because I’m able to recognize the things I would actually love to wear again. It also allows me to feel like the most authentic version of myself because I’m dressing for me, not for others.
The ironic part? By repeating outfits, recognizing what I love, and buying a bit more of it, I’ll be able to create more outfit combinations than ever before. Turns out the solution to outfit repeating was outfit repeating all along.