Wearing same T-shirt every day is the real secret to success

Helen Coffey, The Independent

Born in the Eighties and a teen of the Noughties, I never thought I’d live to see the day when I read the following sentence: Trinny Woodall wears the same T-shirt every day. It beggars belief that the Trinny I knew of — one half of Trinny and Susannah, co-presenter of What Not to Wear, fashion guru extraordinaire, and the woman who encouraged us all to bankrupt ourselves by buying outfit — would pick one modest item of clothing and stick with it. But that is precisely the reality we now inhabit.

To be clear, it’s not the same same T-shirt — there’s no hygiene-related cause for concern here. Speaking to The Telegraph about her weekend routine, Woodall, who has pivoted from fashion to launching her own skincare and makeup line, said: “Saturday is generally a cool pair of jeans day. I like Me+Em barrel jeans. Many people don’t like them, I happen to love them. I wear a white T-shirt with shoulder pads from Zara, which I’ve worn every single day for about four months — not the same one, I must say — with a blazer and sunglasses.”

Woodall isn’t the only person in the spotlight to create and embrace their very own unofficial uniform; the trend is often seen on entrepreneurs and politicians. Just think of Steve Jobs — synonymous with a black turtleneck, pair of blue jeans and branded trainers until his death in 2011. Donald Trump — rarely if ever seen in anything other than a boxy suit and red tie, whether on or off the campaign trail. US governor Josh Shapiro — who leant into his own reputation for constantly being in an identical navy suit and trainers by posting a Tiktok video of himself with the caption, “Did I mention I wear the same thing every day?” Lest you think it’s just men, perhaps the best-known adherent to the uniform aesthetic is the late Queen Elizabeth II. Particularly in the last two decades of her life, the Queen plumped almost exclusively for coats and dresses in bold, block colours with matching hats and black Launer handbags (not to mention the obligatory pearls). “If I wore beige, no one would know who I was,” she once famously said, indicating that part of the impetus behind her style choices was visibility and recognisability — her clothing became a half-outfit, half-costume hybrid. And the uniform approach can undoubtedly help with brand-building — not that the Queen ever needed help in that department. But perhaps for more people still, the motives for settling on an unchanging style are all about avoiding decision fatigue. “I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m wearing,” Jobs is credited as saying in his eponymous biography, written by Walter Isaacson. “I have multiple same jeans and black turtlenecks.”

This became revered as a kind of productivity “hack”, and various other tech bros who worshipped at the altar of Apple followed suit. Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, for example, was once known for his incredibly limited wardrobe of casual wear. “I mean, I wear the same thing every day, right?” he told NBC’s Today host Matt Lauer back in 2012. “If you could see my closet at home...” Said closet was revealed to be packed with “maybe about 20” identical grey T-shirts when Zuckerberg shared a picture of them hanging side by side next to a row of identical grey hoodies. Barack Obama, while president of the United States, expressed a similar sentiment: “You’ll see I wear only grey or blue suits,” he told Vanity Fair in 2014. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” When your job is being one of the most powerful people on the planet, it’s a statement that’s hard to argue with.

In fact, if there’s an overriding theme here, it’s that successful people are often the ones who choose the single-lewk lifestyle. Decision fatigue is defined as a “state of mental and emotional exhaustion that occurs after making too many decisions.