The Tale of Two Coats

and timeless wardrobes

Feb 10, 2025

Wendy, a Vogue[ish] paid supporter and fantastic photographer sent this TedTalk to me and I’m giving you a style assignment this week.

Watch the 10 minute video titled “Is the Cure for Loneliness Hiding in Your Closet?”
Email me with your thoughts and reflections (just hit reply!)
I’ll share a round up of them + my thoughts in a future Vogue[ish] article and think it would be fun to see what your take is. There are a LOT of nuggets and ways you can take this topic.

Thanks for being here!

Timeless Wardrobes are a Myth

I want 2025 to be a year in which we rethink what we’ve been taught, or marketed to, about clothes, shopping, bodies, and getting dressed.

I kicked us off with two essays :

The Courage of Convictions when Getting Dressed
The Aesthetic Pleasure of Being out of Style
Last year, I wrote about Why I no Longer Believe in Forever Wardrobes.

Ad it’s time we look at what I’ve started to think of as the biggest myth of all: the timeless wardrobe.

I looked up “timeless wardrobes” to give a definition and wow does the internet have a lot to say about this. A lot of which feels confusing, contradictory and full of information that doesn’t help you think critically about your wardrobe.

DEFINITION
timeless: not affected by the passage of time or changes in fashion

Here’s my simple summary of this idea:

Timeless wardrobes do not exist because you are not timeless.

Okay calm down! Here’s what I mean:

You’re a living, breathing, dynamic, always changing human. A piece of clothing is the opposite - it’s dead, static, and doesn’t change (well, unless you sic a good tailor on it).

Over the course of your lifetime, the physical shape of your body will undergo major changes many times. There’s the obvious: growing from a teenager to a collegiate aged person to your 20s to 30s and upward. Becoming pregnant, birthing a child, and postpartum introduce a number of variables that forever alter your body (someone once told me their shoe size changed which tbh freaks me out - clothes come and go, but my shoe collection??). One could also face changes that come with being severely underweight then moving into a healthy and appropriate weight or the opposite - gaining more weight than you ever thought you would.

Each of these changes is more than physical - they are also emotional and mental. Because you are a living, breathing, dynamic human!

In other words, you, as a human, are affected - changed - by the passage of time.

A single item, even it if is considered a classic or timeless piece, will remain unaffected by the passage of time. It doesn’t change.

To ask our wardrobe to fulfill the same needs or wants now as it did a few years ago, when we ourselves are so different, seems pretty demanding, and kind of impossible.

The Tale of Two “Timeless” Coats and the Two Different Women Who Wore Them

Photo taken by my fab friend Carly in NYC, 2019

The day I found this coat I had been scouring the racks for items for my thrift subscription service (back in 2016). This coat jumped at me - it was love at first sight. I excitedly texted it to my client and then felt instant regret. The thoughts in my head were: “Wait, why did I do that?? It fits me perfectly. I’ve been looking for something like this! I really hope she doesn’t like it.” Luckily for me, it wasn’t for her, so I snapped it up the wool/angora, fully-lined Tahari beauty for $25 and wore it on constant rotation for the next four years.

It was so timeless! I would love and wear her for the rest of my life. I would never need another new coat again. It felt so perfectly me.

Bless my little heart.

DEFINITION:
timeless clothing: high-quality, versatile item that can be worn for many years and across different fashion trends. Timeless clothing is often well-crafted and made from durable materials.
I detect no lies in the above definition, but this is the definition for a static piece of clothing. It is not going to magically change shape to accomodate our personal changes.

My Emerson Frye coat … also photographed in NYC in 2024.

My next coat came into my life in 2020 and it was, also, love at first sight. The shape, the length, the fabric! It felt so timeless, but also interesting. The Emerson Frye cocoon coat was mine for $125 (retailed at the time for ~$500). Initially, I saved her for more dressy occasions, wearing off and on, but didn’t start wearing her as my go-to until about two years ago in 2023. From that point forward, she became what I reached for on nearly every occasion (expect for really cold weather because she’s lightweight).

It should be noted that these two coats are not alike - they are different weights, different functions, different styles. I didn’t buy the black one to replace the camel one, but as another value-add to my coat wardrobe.

According to the Timeless Wardrobe tenants, both coats should still be able to be worn equally and forever. But while they can be argued to be “timeless” (the cuts, colors, shapes) what was not timeless, or unchanging, was me - the wearer.

Here’s my breakdown on what changed with me between the two coats:

The camel coat version of me had been in a toxic 10 year marriage.
The black coat version of me was divorced and in a happy partnership.
The camel coat version of me was very thin.
The black coat version of me carried more weight.
The camel coat version of me didn’t have a good grasp on what I liked and why.
The black coat version of me can pinpoint why I like this one better (I like the longer length, I like the interesting shape, I like that it’s more oversized and doesn’t fit as tightly).

The physical aspects of why I prefer the black coat over the camel are:

Length - there’s nothing wrong with the length, hitting at my knees. I just prefer a longer coat. To me there’s some drama and oomph in this length that I like better now.
Fit -

I changed - so how often I reached for these coats changed. One became more useful, one less. The idea that I would have and wear the camel coat for the rest of my life just didn’t hold out. And that’s okay. I’m on the look out for another camel coat - but this one will be long, more oversized, and have a different color/lapel situation. I’ve changed, so my “timeless” piece needs to change to fit me.

Here’s where the much happier part comes in.

There’s a lot of angst and time spent over trying to create the perfect timeless forever capsule wardrobe.

Because we’ve equated this to mean: less shopping, stress, money wasted. Only the inverse is typically true: we spend more time shopping, stressing, guilting and spending over the pursuit of these illusory items that “stand the test of time” while we ourselves are actively moving through time.

There is no world in which you buy one button down at age 22 that lasts you until you’re 80. (I mean, if there were such a world, take me there!) You know the phrase that says: “if you stop growing, you’re dying”? That can apply here - if you’re not changing your wardrobe, you’re dying - or you’re at least staying stagnant.

The solution is not to stop shopping or never buy another white button down again. The solution is to shift your mindset and how you think about this process. It’s to embrace the concept that you are fluid and changing and your wardrobe will as well. And that’s okay.

Let’s just let that weight and pressure go.

To be honest, I can’t imagine, at 40, wanting to wear the same button down my 22 year old self wore. That version of me would have worn a slim fit, complete with darting, crisp cotton button down. The current version of me wants an oversized, thicker fabric, maybe with some large pockets and super wide shorter sleeves. These are not the same white button downs!

Learning the skill of being able to define what you like and why during any time in your life is vital to being able to navigate a changing you and changing wardrobe (this is what you learn how to do in Style Lab).

Once you can do this, then you’ll understand how to curate a wardrobe that works with you and the passing of time. That is is how timeless is created.

What’s something you once thought would be timeless and forever in your wardrobe but now isn’t? How have you changed, and noticed your wardrobe needing to change over the years?

Vogue [ish]

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