Matching outfits will probably call to mind visions of perfectly posed family photos or twee, twinning outfits on a brood of kids. These visions of vanilla suburbia are certainly one facet of matchy-matchy clothing, but there’s a bigger story, too. Take girl bands, for example. Whether it’s the complementary outfits of Destiny’s Child from their '00s heyday or the synergistic looks of contemporary bands like BLACKPINK, having a cohesive sartorial image is part and parcel of their professional presence.
What are the common threads here? Well, according to sex psychotherapist and sociologist Jordan Dixon, it’s pretty simple actually. “Curating our fashion with others is an attempt to blend in with the pack and is often deployed to find social acceptance or attunement with others be it a group, a friend, our colleagues, or a partner,” she says. “Finding a reflection of ourselves in those around us in our fashion sense can be a form of validation or social acceptance so that people can fit in and feel secure.”
In short, matching or complementary clothing gives a strong message: belonging, unity, and togetherness. Unsurprisingly then, celebrity couples (or, in many cases, their stylists) create their own version of matching fashion; melding their fashion codes to create a shared style identity to mirror their shared lives - one that announces that not only are they together, but they’re going strong.
Among the strongest examples of this is Justin and Hailey Bieber, who married in 2018 and launched their brand of clean, relaxed California style with an Annie Leibowitz-lensed Vogue cover story. Now, under the watchful eye of shared stylist Karla Welch, the Biebers' wardrobe speaks to a playful approach to proportions and '90s-tinged nostalgia, and it’s not infrequent for the Biebers to appear at events in a carefully toned-in color scheme.
As couples therapist Joanna Harrison explains, these kinds of coordinated outfits can really be an exercise in branding. “Dressing in matching ways might feel like a uniform, it might feel like a distinct statement about who the couple is and what they want the brand of their relationship to be,” she explains. But what about everyday people? Are they working on their couple brand through fashion?
Well, non-celeb couples are in on the act too - but instead of saving their coordinated couple moments to high scale events, they’re more likely to casually dress in matching 'fits. This is particularly true in South Korea (and also China and Japan) where there is a widespread culture of couples dressing. The practice is called 커플룩 (kou-peul look) and can be traced back to the '90s, and involves partners pairing colors and garments or wearing complementary clothes - sometimes even purchasing bespoke matching outfits. And while pretty much every trend can be traced back to celebrity culture or what’s seen in the wider world of fashion, there’s a strong psychological appeal here.
In her article “Couples' Wear in Korea,” published in The Design Journal, design scholar Judy Park delves into the growth and development of the couples clothing in South Korea, looking at the ways that it affirms romantic commitment and love. Kind of like hard-launching a new boyfriend on the grid or the halcyon, noughties days of Facebook relationship statuses, it’s a public underscoring of a partnership and visually connects partners. But beyond commitment, Park argues that couples dressing can really be a form of comfort and identity, writing that the practice gives wearers “a sense of belonging.”
And what about the instances of couples dressing which aren’t deliberate? For every carefully curated twinning outfit, there are boundless examples where partners wind up creating a wardrobe that becomes more and more similar as the relationship progresses and their tastes rub off on one another. What does this say about the people involved - and is it necessarily a good thing?
The answers aren’t so clear-cut, but codependency could be at play, suggests Joanne Entwistle, a reader in culture and creative industries at King’s College London and former sociology lecturer at the University of Essex. “I suspect that the twinning of clothes is an expression of a very much stronger sense of affinity and some codependency, a blurring of their separate identities into a couple,” she says. Perhaps, biological reasons could even come into play. “I don’t know of any research on it but it may also be that some of these couples may have been or are identical twins who are often dressed in the same clothes from birth, but that is pure speculation – it is possible that identical twins might merge with their partners more than the rest of us.”
Whether it’s a purposeful decision or a slow-burn, subconscious change, matching your outfits with a partner is an expression of that same commitment, togetherness, and love that are supposed to be at the heart of any romantic pairing. But what about when these sartorial couples split up? What happens to the stylistic relationship iconography they’ve crafted? Who gets to keep the contents of the shared wardrobe?
Time has given us plenty of examples of once perfectly-matched celeb fashion icons who have built their look in tandem, only for it to come crashing down after the breakup. Case-in-point is Ye and Kim Kardashian, with Ye notably serving as a stylist to Kim throughout their marriage, carving a sleek and futuristic style for her built on a palette of earthy tones. He also integrated his ex-wife into the creative process for Yeezy, creating an army of Kim clones for his Season 6 lookbook. There were, of course, also many years of matching outfits documented in the tabloids.
But with the dissolution of their marriage came the dissolution of this shared aesthetic. And while Ye is still Ye, we’ve seen a major change in Kim’s look: from retro tees, to a controversial stint channeling Italian glamor with D&G, to donning dead Hollywood starlets' dresses. From the outside it looks like she’s on a journey of fashion self-discovery - working with new material, trying out different things and seeing what sticks.
Ultimately, couples wear can tap into our deep, very human need of wanting to feel like we belong - especially in romantic relationships. For most people, it’s going to be a positive experience of mutual discovery and of working out who we are when we are with someone else. However, sometimes, as in the case of Ye and Kim, it can lead to a heavily-curated and controlled aesthetic – which can feel limiting and doesn’t always allow for an independent sense of style. Seeing Kim work through her own fashion likes and dislikes, after years of letting Ye take the lead, is a reminder that breakups can provide much-needed room for growth.
As Dixon reminds us, couples’ dressing should never be used as a smoke screen to obscure our own style or sense of self - it should be an expression of a unique bond and experience we have with someone else: “Are we dressing like our partners because we like our partner's look? Or is it because we may not feel secure about being our authentic selves in our relationship?”
