Published: Thursday, Nov. 03, 2011 / Updated: Thursday, Nov. 03, 2011 04:08 PM
1 dress, 30 days more than a fashion statement
FORT MILL TOWNSHIP --
Not one day in October did Fort Mill resident Shawna Lee Irish ever look in her closet and wonder, “What am I going to wear today?”
For the entire month, Irish wore the same dress, day in and day out.
The October Dress Project is an online challenge that, according to the website, is “anti-consumerism, pro-simplicity, anti-conformity, pro-imagination.” Irish learned about it last year from friends at a Mothers of Preschoolers convention and decided to give it a try.
For Irish, the goal was to show herself, and her husband and two children, that less really can be more.
“My family and myself tend to live with too much. We have too much. We have a lot of clutter, a lot of stuff,” Irish said. “We have a lot of stuff, but we always seem to want more. The kids want this or that, they want shirts with brand names on them now. So this was a great opportunity to show myself and my children that we can live with less.”
Although the goal was to spend less and live with less, Irish allowed herself a small budget to buy a dress for the project. She wanted something that would be versatile and durable, so she set out with $25 in cash. She came home with a purple dress that, for the next 30 days, was her only daytime attire.
Even in just the first days of the challenge, Irish could already see how it was helping her think differently. She accessorized the dress each day and was reminded how her accessories – tights, scarves and shoes – could make an outfit feel fresh and different.
“It’s taught me that I can live with less,” Irish said.
Irish washed the dress every other day and took care to keep it clean and protect the fabric, something she didn’t always think about before.
“I’m finding I put my apron on every time I’m in the kitchen now,” Irish said. “It’s teaching me to really take care of everything I have.”
The project only stipulates that the dress be worn during the day. Nighttime and around-the-house type lounging clothes are allowed. But Irish took it a step further and decided that her night clothes should also be the same yoga pants and T-shirt.
The lessons she learned are more practical than she might have once realized. Unexpected medical expenses have caused the family to incur debt recently, and they are using Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace program to help them pay off the debt and learn to live frugally. The dress project fit right in with that goal, Irish said, and has sparked discussions with her children about how the family can live with less.
“I hope it will help our family get out of debt and show [the kids] we can use that money to do things we want to do and to help others, like mission trips,” Irish said. “I don’t want my children to live in the mindset that they have to have the best of the best.”
Midway through the month, the family had a yard sale and got rid of clothing and household items that weren’t needed or used. Thanks to the dress project, Irish thinks that the family found more to purge.
“We cleaned out and now I feel lighter, freer, fresher,” Irish said.
With the conscious decision to wear the same dress every day, Irish saw a change in her shopping habits. A frequent shopper, Irish remembers that before the project, she could walk into Target for a prescription and leave with a cart full of “extras.” But on a recent trip to the store, she walked in, got the item on her list, and left.
“Normally I would have looked to see if there was a shirt I had to have,” Irish said.
Even through 31 days, Irish said she never got sick of the dress. But putting it on wasn’t always fun, she said.
On a day when Irish only had a trip to the dog groomer planned, she was having a “bad hair day” and wanted to toss on comfortable clothes, a ballcap, and not get “dressed up.” But she pulled on the purple dress, adding a pageboy cap she found in her daughter’s room that wasn’t her style, but garnered several compliments.
“I wasn’t feeling the dress that day,” Irish said. “I almost didn’t put it on my body.”
Irish took daily pictures in the dress and posted them on Twitter and shared them with other participants on the October Dress Project’s Facebook page.
Credit for the lessons she learned in October don’t go to the dress, Irish is quick to mention, or to herself for embarking on the project.
“It’s not that the dress has taught me, the Lord has taught me while I’m wearing it that I’m doing things wrong and as the month goes on I see different things where I can change, my family can change, my husband and I can change the way we do things with our family and children, and how we can rather than blessing ourselves we can bless others,” Irish said.
With the purple dress back in the closet, Irish is ready to take on a new goal. In January, she is considering beginning a year-long focus on living minimally. To read more about Irish’s month-long project and her upcoming goals for 2012, follow her on Twitter at @shawnaleeirish.