Why I Don't Wear the Same Thing To Work Every Day

Creativity, beauty, and simple joys

Photo by Adeolu Eletu on Unsplash

Griffin Gooch

is one of this newsletter’s most faithful readers and subscribers (you should be, too!), so I was interested when he wrote this post making the case for simplified clothing choices.

Why I Wear the Same Outfit to Work Everyday (an essay in pictures)

If you know me well, you know that my take is almost diametrically opposed to Gooch’s. In this article, Gooch notes that many creative people have worn highly reduced wardrobes: Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Tom Wolfe, Christopher Nolan, Stanley Kubrick, John Mark Comer. And the major benefit is that it frees you from having to make menial choices during the day, it helps prevent you from experiencing “choice fatigue” about what to wear. The goal of all this is to simplify our lives so that we can be more creative with our minds and energy. I think this is all mistaken. Instead, I think we ought to lean into designing our outfits each day as an act of agency, creativity, beauty, and joy. I think it’s good for our creativity, good for our self-respect, honoring to God, and a blessing to our neighbor.