The 100 Day Dress Challenge

Back in March, I ordered a Rowena Swing Dress from the Portland-based company, Wool&, and started their 100 day challenge. Challenge requirements were simple: wear the dress for 8 hours per day, for 100 consecutive days, and take a picture every day. The prize was a $100 gift card for another dress. I figured if I loved the dress enough to wear it for 100 days in a row, I would probably want another one in a different color, so the gift card would be welcome. If I didn't manage to complete the challenge, I had nothing to lose. It was a low stakes, high reward situation. Count me in!

Link to the website with challenge info: 100 Day Dress Challenge. The rest of this post is a jumble of reflections. Probably more than anyone cares to know about wearing the same dress over and over. It's nothing new, for goodness sake. I'm sure my ancestors were well versed in the art of wearing the same dress every day. But it was new to me, and inspired some thinking about what I wear and how often I wear it.

Reasons I wanted to try the 100 day dress challenge:

• Material: I love merino wool, and have wanted a dress made out of it for years.
• Decision fatigue: I dislike deciding what to wear every day.
• Minimalism: I wanted to see what it was like to live with a very minimal wardrobe.
• Curiosity: could I really wear the same dress 100 days in a row?
• Pandemic boredom: shaking things up felt interesting!
• The reward was a $100 gift card.

What I didn't like about it:

• Forced laundry times so the dress could be ready in time for the next day. (Wash the dress in the evening and hang to dry overnight--I'm not great at remembering to deal with laundry after 3pm)
• Taking a picture of myself in the dress every day got old.
• Long sleeves were a pain once it got hot, even when I rolled them up.
• The hem hit above my knee, which made wearing it to church feel extreme, haha.
• The neckline of the dress was a tad too wide for me to wear a racerback bra. I missed my racerbacks.
• Now that it's over, I'm not sure I know how to dress myself in my "normal" clothes anymore! 

What I liked about the 100 day dress challenge:

• Loose clothing is the BEST!
• I loved not thinking about my waistline at all. No clingy shirts, just a nice flowy dress. I didn't realize how much I thought about what my stomach was doing/how it was being poked or squeezed by pants and a fitted shirt until I wore this loose dress long term.
• I looked put together even when I didn't feel particularly put together, all because I always had a dress on.
• It was such a relief to live without daily wardrobe decisions.
• Pockets! I liked the pockets in the dress, even if heavy items like a cell phone kind of weighed the dress down and flapped around insecurely when I put them in the pockets.
• Simplicity!
• Low laundry load: since I only wore one dress and only washed it once a week, the only laundry of mine that I had to do was my running clothes, underwear, socks, and any leggings I wore with the dress. 

My dress arrived on March 1st. On March 2nd, my 100 days began, and lasted all the way through June 9th. It spanned a season change, which is always rough on the wardrobe. When it was cold, I layered and wore leggings and scarves with the dress. When it got hot, I rolled up the sleeves and washed the dress more frequently. 

Merino wool is mother nature's miracle fiber. My dress was a soft, lightweight, stretchy knit. Since merino wool breathes well and doesn't hold smells nearly as fast or bad as synthetic fabrics, I only had to wash the dress every 1-2 weeks, depending on how much I sweated (and how much yoga I did in it, haha). During cross country season I had to get creative with getting my 8 hours in the dress, especially on meet days where I spent 6+ hours in running clothes. That led to getting dressed early in the morning, wearing it late into the night, and doing yoga while wearing the dress on many days. 

After cross country season ended, wearing the dress for 8 hours a day was easy-peasy, and most days I wore it for longer because any time I had the opportunity to change into other clothes, I simply couldn't decide what to wear! Clearly I have decision making issues. It's not easy being a highly sensitive six foot tall woman in a world of itchy seams and averaged out sizing. Finding clothes that fit and then committing to wearing them for a whole day is always a chore. I loved how loose and flowy my 100 day dress was. No waistband? Yes, please! Because I am so tall, though, the dress was barely long enough to cover what I wanted covered at the hemline. When it was warm enough to wear the dress to church without tights, I felt extra... leggy. Everything was covered, but my legs are extremely long, and going to church brings out my very most conservative side, wardrobe-wise, so I felt leggy. 

Taking a picture of myself in the dress every day was the hardest part of the challenge for me. The dress always looked the same, and I didn't change that much either, so it just felt kind of boring, not to mention narcissistic to be taking pictures of my outfit every single day! I am no stranger to selfies, but self-photography every single day felt like a lot. I tried to take pictures in different parts of our house and yard so the days would look different, and I put the pictures into photo collages to help keep track of what day I was on. On Day 100, I wanted to get a fun exciting grand finale picture in the dress to celebrate finishing the challenge. So I rolled the dress into my running pack and ran to the most triumphant place in town: Superman Hill. When I got there, I pulled the dress over my running clothes and took a few triumphant pictures in front of the Superman symbol. Then I packed it back up and ran back down the hill. It was actually my best run all week!

The first day after the challenge ended, I wore pants and a t-shirt instead of The Dress. Let's just say Jeff appreciated more of my shape being visible than it had been under the loose dress, haha. On day 101, I submitted my Google Photos folder of 100 dress pictures to the company via email, filled out a survey from the Wool& company, and they issued my gift card that afternoon! I have already used it to order a short sleeve dress.

The challenge ended up being both easy and hard! Sometimes I got bored wearing the same thing every day, but whenever that happened, I tried to figure out what I wished I could wear, and I rarely could pick something else that I wanted to wear more. It was so nice not to wonder what to wear every day. I already miss having a default outfit. I could keep wearing the dress, but I also missed my other clothes by the end of the challenge, especially because it started getting hot and my dress had long sleeves. Wearing an above-the-knee dress involves a certain amount of paranoia when the wind picks up, so it's nice not to have to deal with that. For now, I am relishing the feel of Other Clothes, but I may need to adopt an outfit-of-the-week plan or something to eliminate that pesky daily wardrobe decision dilemma. Wahoo for completing a challenge! 

Here are my 100 dress pictures, in collage form:

Views from the top of Superman hill.

Super victory!