Back in 2010 I wrote about my attraction to personal uniforms. Effectively a simple set of clothing that can be replicated and worn every day, ideally eliminating the “what am I wearing today” decisions first thing in the morning. Just grab the same thing everyday and go.

In the initial post I designated 3 core principles:

  1. Replicable
  2. Mix-matchable
  3. Travel friendly

I’ve been playing with this idea for the better part of the last 10 years, on again and off again, though it’s getting to the point where I find off again frustrating and it stresses me out to the point of inaction more often than I want to admit, so on again is my preference these days and I’ve been actively getting rid of things that don’t fit the bill. Over those years the specific items I choose, as well as what exactly those core principles are have changed and evolved and I thought it might be useful to track it on GitHub so I’ve created a page there with some info that I’ll add to as time goes on, and anyone is welcome to fork or suggest changes to.

My current thinking is that a personal uniform should be replicable by definition so having that as a principle doesn’t make a lot of sense. And for me, mix-matchable is resolved in a single solid color. So, circa December 2015 the principles are:

  1. Primarily Black only – YMMV on this one, but I have to finally admit that when I get things of other colors they never get worn.
  2. No blatant branding – Again, maybe it’s because I designed shirts for so long, but anything I have with graphics pretty much collects dust and I shouldn’t add to that.
  3. No impulse buys, research everything ahead of time – On occasion when I’m swayed by something in a store that I hadn’t known about or considered previously and I’m convinced to buy it, very often I’ll go home and research it and then end up feeling the need to “upgrade it” to something else. When in fact, I should have just researched and bought the thing I wanted first, or taken that extra time and decided against it entirely.
  4. Travel friendly (light, compact, packable) – This is more or less important to people based on their travel schedule, but I fly over 100,000 miles a year so it’s pretty important to me. If something will get wrinkled and messed up, or takes up half my suitcase, it’s probably not the best choice.
  5. Multi season friendly – I’m committing to layering vs single temp items. Base layers, Mid layers, shells, etc. This also helps with the previous packing/travel note as more than once I’m going from hot to cold, wet to dry in the same trip.

Brands I’m liking right now for this include Outlier, Acronym, ExOfficio, Rapha and Patagonia. I’ll list out some specific items from these companies on the GitHub page in the coming days.