Writing on her website, Sheena Matheiken explains

Starting May 2009, I have pledged to wear one dress for one year as an exercise in sustainable fashion. Here's how it works: There are 7 identical dresses, one for each day of the week. Every day I will reinvent the dress with layers, accessories and all kinds of accouterments, the majority of which will be vintage, hand-made, or hand-me-down goodies. Think of it as wearing a daily uniform with enough creative license to make it look like I just crawled out of the Marquis de Sade's boudoir...The Uniform Project is also a year-long fundraiser for the Akanksha Foundation, a grassroots movement that is revolutionizing education in India. At the end of the year, all contributions will go toward Akanksha's School Project to fund uniforms and other educational expenses for slum children in India.

She adds that, growing up wearing school uniforms in India, she was always struck by the extent to which people were able to personalize their looks, and sees the project not just as "an exercise in sustainable fashion" but as an example of the creativity that can satisfy our acquired taste for constant novelty. Of course, it should be said that she actually has seven identical frocks (for hygiene's sake, one imagines), custom-made for maximum versatility by Eliza Starbuck. Accordingly, the dress can be worn backwards and forwards, as well as as "an open tunic." Clearly, too, Matheiken has a closet full of rad accessories that amounts almost to a wardrobe in itself - and is the sort of woman to make anything look cool - so while it's a great example, I wouldn't expect many people to try this at home.

Looks range from work-conservative to wedding-fancy. (As well as, I guess, the aforementioned boudoir-crawling, if that's your thing.) A few favorites include June 18th's "summerless newyork," and today's "Catholic academy," in which the dress is embellished with a doily collar and accessorized with a vintage beret. So maybe the feather necklace wasn't great; a year's a long time. Sometimes, it must be said, the actual dress seems tangential to the overall look - i.e., when she sports it over a vintage dress - but so far, so impressive. Rather than, say, the classic French aesthetic in which it wouldn't be considered problematic to actually wear the same basics day in and day out, the Uniform Project seeks to address our need for constant innovation and novelty with minimal environmental impact - and that's no easy task.

Some of you may remember that Alex Martin did something similar: wearing a brown dress for a year. Then, the emphasis was more on the cause of "rejecting the economic system" than on the concept's fashion potential, but she did show it could be done. Of course, while simply "cutting down on consumption" is a more fraught and complex idea than it might seem at first glance - we've talked a lot about the real-life consequences of simply opting out of the market - it's also true that this is a time when we're uniquely receptive to ingenuity, creativity, and, just maybe, a change of habits. Matheiken's project is about adventure rather than compromise, which is a wholesome ethos indeed. Now, one can always question any charitable enterprise that puts one face, or model, front and center, but in this case it feels both justifiable and practical. And should the project result in a book? Hell, we'll buy it.
The Uniform Project
The Uniform Project - One Girl, One Dress, One Year [Styleist]

Eco-Friednly Fashion Like You've Never Seen It [BlackBook]

Little Brown Dress

Thanks to the reader who sent us a tip about the video Films of a Daredevil, which includes clips from eight films Sannom made for a Danish film company. Sannom started acting in films when she was 23 and performed all of the stunts herself, with no camera tricks or stand ins. She made 30 movies before falling to her death in 1931 when her parachute failed to open during an air show. [Europa Film Treasures]

While a lot of people are eating organic, Greene's stunt it noteworthy for its length and thoroughness, eating only organic food — defined as that produced without pesticides, antibiotics or hormones — both at home and in restaurants. "He chose three years as a goal because that was the amount of time it took to have a breeding animal certified organic by the Department of Agriculture. While food growers comply with organic regulations every day, Dr. Greene wondered whether a person could meet the same standards." Obviously, this was pricey — organic food can cost up to twice as much as what Whole Foods parlance terms "conventional," no laughing matter in these straitened times. (He found that cutting down on meat helped equalize the costs.) Then too, even in Dr. Greene's relatively health-conscious neck of the woods (where he was able to join a CSA and shop numerous farmers markets), organic chow could be hard to come by at, say, truck stops. Quoth the good doctor, “It was much more challenging than I thought it would be, and I thought it would be tough. There were definitely days where there was nothing I could find that was organic.” He'd call ahead to make sure restaurants could ensure that no non-organic morsel passed his lips; his family was into it.

Greene's rationale was that "his findings offer new insight into the challenges facing the organic food industry and those of us who want to patronize it." He also hoped it would improve his own health which, anecdotally it has (the scientific verdict is still out on whether organic foods are healthier, with arguments for both sides.)

Three years later, he says he has more energy and wakes up earlier. As a pediatrician regularly exposed to sick children, he was accustomed to several illnesses a year. Now, he says, he is rarely ill. His urine is a brighter yellow, a sign that he is ingesting more vitamins and nutrients.

While the experiment is a laudable one — and, in fairness, predates a lot of the food-related stunt journalism that's glutted the marketplace in recent years, and certainly the recent economic downturn — the rigid and stunt-like nature of it feels slightly arbitrary. It's certainly Dr. Greene's prerogative, and since he has the time and means to do so, more power to him: it's doubtless good to know the practical limitations of theory. It is always encouraging, too, to see a doctor practicing what he preaches. That said, the application is beyond the reach of most everyone, and as such, experiments such as these are feeling increasingly academic.

For Three Years, Every Bite Organic [New York Times]