Uniforms

Wearing the same outfits or variations on a theme

I have always enjoyed wearing uniforms or outfits that are variations on the same theme. I was trained to do so in schools that always had tailored uniforms. I remember the end of the summers when I'd go with my parents to pick up material for the uniform. The shop always had three options, and we always went with the shmedium prized one. Then we'd go to the tailor who always wore his spectacles down his nose and a measuring tape, at the ready, wrapped over his shoulders like a shawl. When he spoke, he lowered his head till his chin was almost at his chest and looked through the void not occupied by his glasses. He looked straight only when taking measurements. The tape always got uncomfortably close to the crotch when he took the inseam. Then he'd stare and ask, "Where should I take the waist - at the hip bone or at the belly button?" It was an argument that my family always won, and I ended up with pants that sat way above my waist, making me look like a stick figure cartoon, all legs and no torso. As the year went on and the pants got a little less stiff, I'd wriggle them down to my hip bones and untuck my shirt just enough so that it covered the belt - perhaps early childhood evidence that I had an innate sense of proportion for clothes or that I was simply vain. 

Uniforms have been lucky for me. After watching Terminator 2 in the summer of 1999, I decided that I would always wear a button-up shirt over my t-shirt. It was a poor man's tropical tribute to Arnold Schwarzenegger's black leather jacket over black shirt look. I wore the outfit in the sweltering South Indian heat while playing tag with friends or running around with toy guns in the backyard.

The outfit paid off in the year 2000 at the annual cultural events night at my school. The teachers had planned an event titled Millenium Stars. The premise was that they would dress up primary school kids in garbs of famous 20th-century men and women - ranging from Martin Luther King (no blackface) to Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa to Amitabh Bachan. My English teacher, who was my neighbor, had seen me playing around with toy guns in my Terminator tribute outfit, and she volunteered me to play someone I had not heard of until then - Sean Connery as James Bond. So it went that at the ripe age of 8, my father made me watch an early James Bond film in the hopes that I would pick up something about his mannerisms. The only thing seared into my memory was the shot of a woman's back as Bond slyly unzips her dress. There is a picture of me somewhere, dressed in a black shirt and black pants, pointing a gun at the audience. The lines were "I'm Bond. James Bond", delivered in a thick Indian accent that would make British lords roll in their graves and regret ever having colonized my country. 

action movies love uniforms

Sometime after Brazil won the World Cup in 2002, I came to possess a Brazil soccer jersey with the famous number 9 on the back. The number was worn by Ronaldo, who, for the sake of non-soccer fans, preceded Cristiano Ronaldo as one of the greats of his generation. I wore the jersey every single day when I played soccer on the streets in the evenings. My mom did the laundry every day, and I'd come home from school to find the bright canary yellow jersey fluttering on the clothesline on the balcony. I wore the garb every day cause it made me play better. It was a magical object imbibed with some kind of soccer DNA. I wore it so much that my mom complained that the neighbors probably thought I did not have any other clothes to wear. She eventually decided to hide the jersey from me in the hopes that I'd forget it, which my ADHD brain eventually did. The Brazilians famously consider it bad luck to play a World Cup gain in their away colors of blue and white. I get it. 

Lately, uniforms had become background information that I didn't pay attention to – until I visited Japan. There, schools seem to have elaborate uniforms. On top of the shirt and pleated pants or shorts, little fellas wear sweaters with the school logo emblazed on them or, other times, a blazer. Some schools seemed to have hats that looked like upward-turned bucket hats. Plaid skirts are considered basics by women in Japan, the same way yoga pants seem to be in Austin. Camille tells me it's likely because the school uniforms made the pattern comfortable and familiar. She went to a catholic school in San Antonio that had a uniform, and she tells me that is part of the reason she loves wearing button-down shirts.

This winter, my daily uniform has been a dark brown loamy hoodie I got in Japan and a pair of black quilted pants with an elastic waistband. I am writing this newsletter wearing this, and I've worn the same outfit at least 4 days this week. I seem to reach for them unconsciously every morning. I'm not in the throes of some optimization culture mania that suggests all decisions that can be simplified must be simplified, nor is this garb somehow part of a personal brand. I find it comfortable and an appropriate interface for interacting with the world. I love novelty a bit too much to wear the same outfit year-round, so picking a new uniform is a seasonal affair. It's part of setting up my development environment for the season. 

For a few years in my 20s, I had forgotten about uniforms, and I felt uncertain about how to interact with the world, like one of those websites that have several pop-ups and calls to action, unsure of why it even exists. Sometimes, I still feel this way, particularly in the summers which make it impossible to wear the same outfit over and over again. I try not to dwell on this too much, or plan escapes when I do. Alas, it has become harder to escape the heat or predict the weather anywhere, dampening my efforts to think of cities as accessories for my uniforms. 

Current uniform