A Fashion Editor’s Secret to Repeating Outfits at Work Without Anyone Noticing

I recently found myself thinking a lot about repeating outfits at work. After half a decade of remote and hybrid workdays, I’m being asked to show up four, sometimes five, days a week to the office. But as much as I like to banter with my coworkers in between meetings, there are more in-office days than there are shirts, pants, and dresses in my closet. It’s forced me to think long and hard about how to discreetly become an outfit repeater without it being noticed, a challenge that is especially difficult when you work in the fashion industry.

If I were my fully functioning best self every day, being able to whip up five to six creative summer office outfits with a single item is easy. But the truth is, I lack time and energy after spending nine hours at my desk, plus the commute, to think about new ways to style a button-down shirt or blazer on a random Thursday at 7:20 a.m. So I’ve resorted to planning all my outfits in advance. I take a single garment—say, these new bermuda shorts I got from Aritzia last Sunday—and make a mess of my bedroom playing dress-up. Over time I’ve learned just how many ways there are to style one item of clothing, camouflaging it to look like something new every single time.

It becomes a fun game once you get started. A dress can be turned into a skirt if you wear a cardigan over it, and a button-down layers beautifully under a crewneck when you let the collars pop out from under. In the two examples pictured below, for instance, I transformed a simple skirt and a pair of long shorts by mixing and matching them with other wardrobe staples.

Three ways to style a skirt for work