Sheena Matheiken may wear the same thing every day, but she's not in a wardrobe rut. Rather than feel limited by her pledge to sport the same dress for a year – a process she is documenting on www.theuniformproject.com – she sees infinite outfit possibilities.
“I think giving yourself a creative constraint makes you more creative in a way,” Matheiken said from New York on Monday, Day 53 of her venture. “I know that I have my base and I just have to build off of it.”
Since the Web designer launched her experiment, designed to make a point about sustainable fashion and to raise some cash for a good cause, she has variously appeared as an intergalactic mermaid, Peter Pan and Minnie Mouse.
The dress (she actually owns seven copies) was designed by her friend, Eliza Starbuck. A charcoal-coloured cotton tunic, it can be worn over or under other garments or back to front, jazzed up with any number of accessories.
Each outfit is displayed on her site, which went live on June 1. She says she has received around 100,000 unique hits, with up to 10,000 people visiting daily, many eager to donate accessories.
Matheiken hopes that by showing all the different ways a garment can be propped, she can inspire others to think twice about overconsuming cheap clothes. “You just accumulate and accumulate all this stuff that you never wear,” she says.
But Matheiken also wants her experiment to help out a program for children in her native India. The Uniform Project is raising money for the Akanksha Foundation (www.akanksha.org), which covers the cost of school uniforms and educational fees for slum children.
At press time, she had raised $3,118 (U.S.). She hopes to hit $30,000 by the end of her year-long experiment.
Carla Wintersgill
