Strength in Continuity
Let’s talk about the importance of developing a personal uniform. As someone who always wants to eschew trends the uniform philosophy has become an essential part of my approach. Before I jump into all of that I wanted to welcome all of the new people who came aboard in the past few weeks. In addition to this newsletter, each week my good friend David Coggins and I publish a podcast called Central Division where we talk about travel, style, life and other things depending on what’s going on. The full archive is here.
This week though Coggins is off this fishing in Cuba. But we were just interviewed by our friend Brett McKay on the Art of Manliness podcast to discuss our theories of uniforms and why dressing with a sense of self-knowledge matters. We’ve talked about that quite a bit on Central Division and it was fun to head into the deep end on a favorite topic.
We talk about this on the pod, but its worth reiterating the point here that my view on uniform dressing is different than the Steve Jobs thing. He wanted to eliminate having to make decisions about what to wear. My personal uniform inspiration comes from guys like Mickey Drexler, Andy Spade and Steven Alan. My move towards uniform dressing is about finding the clothes that best represent my personal style and building a stable of those garments which work best for me. So refine your closet to just be the clothes that work best for you and only wear versions of that stuff. This approach creates a safe yet high performing wardrobe. That’s the goal. Hope you enjoy the podcast.
I don't even have any intent of having a personal uniform, though I find myself wearing jeans with a sweater, chore jacket, and red wing moc toe boots about every day this winter. Even when the intention isn't there, it is easy to fall into a rhythm of wearing whatever you feel most comfortable in.