At ELLE we have a uniform.
It's not written in to our contracts, or enforced by our Editor, but something very peculiar happens that means on any given day at least five (often more) of us will be wearing almost exactly the same thing.
There's a formula to our weekly wears;
On Monday we wear bretons, everyone’s fail-safe stripes is an easy choice to help us through the start of the week.
On Tuesday we dress smart - cue: tailoring, brogues, and crisp white shirts.
On Wednesday we do #ELLEfit club so we wear sports clothes, and those of us that don't even workout will wear hoodies and sweats, perhaps just to fit in.
On Thursday we wear jeans, I'm honestly not sure we know why.
And on Friday we drink, after hours of course - but as a result our outfits are more fun, dressier, feature more leopard print.
It's almost embarrassing, us sat in a little line typing away and looking like we've Whatsapp'd one another our sartorial choice that morning (we most certainly don't do this).
According to the Telegraph there's a reason to why we dress the same as our colleagues.
Psychologist Emily Lovegrove explains it; 'It kicks in early on that the way to get accepted by other kids is to look the same, particularly around secondary school age. When you hit puberty, the approval of your peer group matters more than [that of] your family's. You desperately want to fit in with what they like because… Kids who look different are the ones that get picked on... Although we like to think of ourselves as very sophisticated, we're still working at cave men level whereby to be in a group is far safer than to be isolated. So people wear things that fit in with their group by and large.'
In short: we do it to fit in, but when your colleagues look as good as mine who can blame me.
