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Trendspotting Jun 12, 2007 @ 10:17am

Match Point

matchy matchy.jpg
You look good.

Your friend looks good.

Is that a problem? Perhaps it could be if you’re matching outfits with your friends. We spotted three pairs of friends on the street sporting similar styles, and started thinking…

Unlike the well-documented horrors of wearing the same dress as the class weirdo at the prom, this kind of coordination is subtle and pervasive. Friends and couples often spend a lot of time together, shop together, swap mix tapes, and read the same magazines and blogs, so the look-alike look is not unusual.

But at what point do you have to go home and change? Or send your friend home to change?

—ALISON COOL

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1

posted by guest

Jun 12, 2007 10:37AM

The point at which bitch is wearing something you TOLD her you'd bought and were really excited about. Although then the correct penalty is death, not outfit changing. Girl code.

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2

posted by Ilene

Jun 12, 2007 10:43AM

i was in tokyo a few weeks ago and my friend and i noticed that friends often had subtle themes very much like what you're talking about....
we thought it looked pretty cute so we hopped on the bandwagon. actually one day we didn't even mean to match and we both ended up wearing sailor stripes. we didn't change because we thought it was cool...two good friends with similar taste isn't necessarily a bad thing.

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3

posted by Cail

Jun 12, 2007 10:44AM

I'm from the south, so bear with me on this story...

I was going with my boyfriend to meet his family for the first time, and had planned my outfit, which included a red seersucker skirt and a white tank top. I thought it captured cute, stylish, respectful, etc. all in one outfit. I get to my boyfriend's house so that we could make the three hour drive to his parents' house, and he walks out in red seersucker pants and a white button-down shirt. Needless to say, we looked like a perverse version of the Bobbsey twins.

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posted by liane

Jun 12, 2007 10:49AM

definitely curiously similar, but alike black and white combos aren't too terribly matchy matchy. Styles are similar, but even some neighborhoods seem to dress from the same closet, let alone bffs! Perhaps their friendship is glued together by a shared dislike of ROYGBIV?

am in shanghai right now and it's not unusual to see couples dressed alike- not just in similar colour combos, but in the exact same logo-d or lettered tshirt or top.

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5

posted by qtpie

Jun 12, 2007 11:02AM

ugh when i went to the klaxons @ studio b these two girls were hanging out with my (male) roommate and they were cute BUT they were wearing the same pair of jeans and the same pair of boots. they planned it that way. you couldn't tell them apart!

i think it's cute when friends/couples/sisters etc have the same sensibility, but when you're just copying, well...ugh.

ps i saw gemma in person this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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6

posted by guest

Jun 12, 2007 11:09AM

qtpie - where? i'm jealous! was she stunning ?

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posted by Eli

Jun 12, 2007 11:54AM

except this combination is probably the easiest to match with someone else. All three pictures match together too. I bet half of the USA is wearing white top with blue/black jeans/pants right now.

I once met up a friend for some hanging out time before she left to grad school and I moved away to another state for work, and we were both wearing white fitted tees, blue jeans cuffed up, and silver flats. We didnt plan it, we lived far away from where we met up, but the first words out of our mouths were "Go back home and change into something else"

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posted by Phil

Jun 12, 2007 12:20PM

I read (somewhere, at some point) that it's like a mental-tribal thing. Groups of friends over time will adapt each others traits (clothes, hair, makeup, slang, etc.)... Kind of like 'syncing' (ladies, wink wink).

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posted by qtpie

Jun 12, 2007 12:30PM

by st. marks place, near pdt. she was stunning but she looks like such a baby!

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posted by guest

Jun 12, 2007 12:47PM

dear phil, never say wink in the context. nasty.

i agree though, my one good friend has the most annoying habit of inserting "like" into the middle of sentences, like, incredibly frequently and i notice myself picking it up (boo) when i, like, spend a lot of time with her.

same goes for clothes i think!

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11

posted by Phil

Jun 12, 2007 2:23PM

lol anonymous! I'll never do it again. :D

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posted by GG

Jun 12, 2007 2:35PM

Vice has a thing about how in Korea it is a trend right now for couples to wear the exact same thing:
http://vice.typepad.com/vice_magazine/2007/06/south_korea_uni.html

PS Alison aren't you an IDENTICAL TWIN?

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13

posted by astrid

Jun 12, 2007 2:49PM

my best girlfriend, who lives in a different city, and i meet for vacations where we inevitably show up wearing the same outfit, only to discover that we have packed basically all the exact same clothes. at that point, there's nothing to do but laugh and make sure we alternate for the rest of the trip.

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posted by Alison Cool

Jun 12, 2007 5:08PM

Yes, GG I am an identical twin! I think that is why I picked up on this mini-trend.

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posted by M

Jun 12, 2007 5:37PM

I like it when my friends and I complement one another by having a similar color scheme or overall style, and I don't tell them this but I think of us as being in a band. It doesn't work if you're wearing something too basic--like my coworkers who often find themselves both in blue button-down shirts and khakis. Then it's like being in prison.

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