WATCH ABOVE: An Edmonton woman is halfway through a year-long mission. It’s seemingly simple: wear the same dress every day for an entire year. As Quinn Ohler reports, she’s started a blog to track the journey and send an important message.
TORONTO — Elizabeth Withey has taken what some might consider a fashion faux pas and turned it into a simplicity challenge. Every single day for what will be six months this week, the Edmonton mother has worn the same black dress. And she’s only halfway through the endeavour she’s titled Frock Around the Clock.
In addition to wearing the same dress for an entire year, Withey’s other goal is not to buy anything new. It’s her statement against the consumerism and materialism that often permeates the fabric of our society.
“It’s kind of thinking the next outfit will make you happy or whatever and it absolutely won’t…It’s just a never-ending situation. I think people are searching for satisfaction in some regard or feeling like they’ve earned it and it’s actually not going to do anything for you in the long-term.”
But Withey’s main reason for taking on this challenge is to just free up some time in her life — time she thought could be better spent with her young son, for instance.
“I can think of many times when my son would sort of be tugging at my sleeves, saying like, ‘Come hang out with me.’ And I’m sort of standing at the closet — like any woman has been known to do — and sort of trying to decide what to wear,” the 37-year-old said.
When it came to picking out her outfit for the year, comfort and versatility were key. So Withey chose a stretchy T-shirt style dress named “Laverne” from a local boutique.
Wearing the same dress for what is now the third season hasn’t come without its challenges.
Withey spilled clear nailpolish in Laverne’s crotch, which left a “horrible off-white bodily excretion“-coloured stain that was “even a little crusty.” Nothing a black Sharpie couldn’t fix, though. Laverne has also left her with a bit of a farmer’s tan. Not to mention feeling a little hot in Edmonton’s recent heat wave.
“I’ve kind of been jumping from shadow to shadow in the heat wave and kind of wishing I could go around in something with spaghetti straps,” she admitted.
But surprisingly, the dress has held up quite well (aside from some pilling). And its smell hasn’t been that big of an issue. Withey said she only had to wash the frock, which she does by hand, about once a week in the winter.
That schedule has been bumped up to once every couple days now that it’s summer.
“I’ll see how I feel about it at the end of August. I have a feeling I’ll be washing the dress every day, if not halfway through the day; or running through spray parks or something to cool myself off.”
One small loophole to the challenge is that Laverne gets spruced up with a few pieces selected from Withey’s existing wardrobe.
“People will say, ‘Oh, you’re wearing jeans, that’s cheating.’ I’m like, ‘No, it’s my game, first of all.’ And second of all, as long as the dress is on, I can put on whatever I want with it. It kind of works as a tunic then.
“There have been a few times where I think, ‘Oh man, I’d like to show some cleavage or just wear a pair of jeans with a tank top.’ But that time will come again.”
Withey said once her one-year challenge is complete, she plans to pare down her wardrobe, which looked like this before:
She’s not the first person to do something like this. A few years ago, a University of Alberta student wore the same pair of jeans every day for more than a year.
“There were times when it had a bad odour, like in the seventh month,” he said. “That’s when I threw it in the freezer and magically when it came out it was odourless.”
READ MORE: Study finds no harmful bacteria on jeans not washed for 15 months
A male TV host also wore the same suit for a year to highlight sexist double standards. No one noticed until he went public with his social experiment.
Withey said most people don’t notice that she wears the same thing every day either.
“It’s possible and not really a big deal.”
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