Day 18

I am doing a weird thing, my friends: I am wearing the same dress every day for a month.

Have you seen the Wool& ads? Their branding is all focused on the idea that you can be happy with fewer high-quality items in your wardrobe. Be free of fast fashion! Wear a wool dress instead! They do these challenges, in which you wear one of their dresses for 30 consecutive days or -- if you can believe it -- for a hundred consecutive days. At the end of that time they give you money (either $30 or $100) to spend in their shop.

My friend Beth did the 100-day challenge and I saw bits and pieces of it on Facebook. Last month we got together for coffee for the first time in a long time, and she was telling me that she thought I'd like these clothes. Wool doesn't retain odor, she said, and I made skeptical faces. Wool assists with temperature regulation, she said, and I thought skeptically about all the times I have removed my wool shawls and scarves in a hot classroom. 

But the dresses are beautiful. I had thought about buying one for years. Last month they had some of my favorite colors at warehouse clean-out prices, and so I took the plunge. This is not a sponsored post; they don't do coupons or affiliate links or any of that stuff, as far as I know. My entirely unsponsored opinion is that this dress is amazing. I love the color, I love the swing, I love the pockets, I love the fabric; the length and the sleeves and the V-neck are perfect. It is cozy without being too hot, and to my astonishment it actually does not appear to retain odor. (Most people seem to get by with nightly airings coupled with spot-cleaning and occasional washings, which is my strategy so far too.)

I had always thought that if I were ever to try one of these challenges, of course I'd have to do it in a black dress. It would be conspicuously weird, I thought, to wear the same green dress every day for many days, but wearing the same black dress every day would just be a clandestine flavor of weird. Last night I asked everyone in my house if they had noticed that I'd worn the same distinctive rust-colored dress every day (though not necessarily all day) for 2.5 weeks straight. "Nope," they all said, all four of them. "Not a clue."

So if you have been thinking to yourself about sustainable clothing purchases, or wishing for a little less laundry, or if you have perhaps eyed the Wool& website while wondering if the dresses are worth the price tag, I can tell you that this one has exceeded my expectations by a wide margin so far.