Mo Kim

Hi, world! I have a confession: I’m 27, and I still feel like I don’t know how to dress myself.

There are a lot of reasons why I ended up this way. First, there’s the experience of growing up in a household where most of my clothes were donated to me by my older cousins. (Shout-out to the yellow corduroys with the teddy bear on the pocket, one of the rare winners in that pile of hand-me-downs.) Then there’s the fact that I spent five years of my adolescence in the South Korean education system, where everybody wore uniforms and I never had to think too hard about what to wear. Finally, there’s the discomfort I’ve only recently started unpacking around my body, around all the ways it refuses to conform to my religious immigrant family’s expectations of me: the same grey suits and ties my father thrust on my 18-year-old self, insisting they would make me look like a proper gentleman once I went to college, are the same clothes I chafed at long before I realized I didn’t want to date girls, long before I asked myself who this act of “being a man” was really for, long before I realized that the Korean church fit me about as well as an untailored jacket.

Ultimately, though, the biggest reason is simple: fear. Most of the clothes I’ve accumulated over the last eight years live in my closet as aspirations, better in my imagination than on my body. Despite my desire to expand my fashion horizon beyond jeans and graphic tees, the anxiety of messing up (or being judged for messing up) still holds me back. I’ve finally realized that no matter what my fashion journey has been so far, I won’t be able to develop my sense of style without playing around a little.

And that’s why I’m doing something ridiculous: for the next month, I’m letting my friends, colleagues, and Internet friends dress me. I’ve solicited twenty-seven different outfit themes with the help of Twitter and Instagram, and the calendar you see below is the result:

I have also set a few rules for myself:

1. I cannot wear the same piece of clothing more than twice this month. This will be a big challenge for me as somebody who rotates through four hoodies, three flannels, and two pairs of pants a month. But there are a lot of lovely things in my wardrobe that deserve to see actual sunlight, and I’m committing to letting them shine this month.
2. I also cannot buy any new clothing. It’s not just that I’m currently broke; it’s also that I want to appreciate and work with the many things I have already. Impulse shopping has become one of my greatest guilty pleasures, and it’s something I’d like to curb in 2023.
3. I will upload a picture and blog post every month. Yes, this scares me. (The voice in my head is already wheedling: “What if we post once a week instead?”) But hey, I haven’t done the blogging thing in a long time and I think it would be fun to get back into writing something that’s goofy and low-stakes.
4. Most importantly, I will have fun with this challenge, no matter how silly it gets. This is a lesson I didn’t expect to learn in adulthood: goofing off has a lot of educational value! It’s why Ring Fit Adventure became my gateway into fitness. It’s why I ended up becoming an unofficial mukbang livestreamer for my school during shelter-in-place. And it’s why I want to embrace the process over the outcome. Even if I wear some of the ugliest outfits ever witnessed by human eyes, I know I’ll have fun creating them, and that’s what I want to focus on.

Thanks for reading this far – and keep posted for more updates this month!