Main image: Former tech entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes notably wore a black turtleneck on rotation in an apparent nod to her idol, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Holmes is portrayed by Amanda Seyfried in Hulu’s The Dropout .

Who doesn’t love a man in uniform? Immaculate tailoring, creases where they’re meant to be, shoes spit-and-polished to a mirror finish and a jaunty hat to tip. Whether it’s a doctor in surgical scrubs, an aproned butcher, a pilot sporting wings on his breast pocket, a soldier in camouflage, a mantled matador dressed to kill or a white-gloved waiter at The Marbella Club, uniforms lend authority to any profession. And there’s the allure of the livery: New York City firemen raise temperatures, even at false alarms.

We’ve grown accustomed to seeing men in various types of uniform; part of our fascination with Mad Men has been watching savvy fellas don smart suits to go to work every day, just like our fathers did. When our mothers were girls, the uniforms they were encouraged to aspire to included nurses whites and aprons. For the adventuresses, there were sturdily glamorous air hostess uniforms designed by Sybil Connolly, Irene Gilbert, Neillí Mulcahy, Digby Morton and Ib Jorgensen.

Even if weekends are for Ugg boots and cutoffs worn with opaque tights, school uniforms can be a blessing to parents as well as children, grateful for the anonymity conferred by standard issue gear. But what happens when we leave school? Given the choice every morning, do we reach into our overstuffed closets and pull together interesting outfits, reflective of our mood as well as our purpose that day? Or do we throw on a variation of a theme we’ve riffed on from the moment we realised we had the power to choose what we wear? And, if we do assume a kind of uniform, does it work for us? Is it freeing, allowing us to invest our money and energies into other interests, or is it a kind of straitjacket, limiting who we are and what we might become, given the right stylist?

Miami-based choreographer and director of the dance company Whole Project, Brigid Baker is the epitome of old-school glamour and, when she’s not rehearsing a new work, an A-list guest at celeb-studded art events around town. “I love to drop a gown for sure, but on the day to day, everyone knows it’s the infamous blue pants,” she says. “What my mother called my uniform. Blue pants, gold shoes.” New York theatre and film costume designer Elizabeth Shelton dresses herself to a formula too: “I have about five pairs of identical black trousers and a bunch of identically tailored shirts in slightly different patterns. It makes the early morning choice so much easier.”

Vera Wang creates dreamy gowns for brides with healthy budgets, but she almost exclusively wears leggings. Jean Paul Gaultier gave the world Madonna’s conical bra, and his allegiance to the Breton shirt, or marinière, is not due to lack of imagination: “When I started in fashion, I had already adopted the sailor-striped sweater as my uniform; that way, I wouldn’t have to drive myself crazy trying to figure out what to wear.”

If Einstein’s banal post as a clerk in a patent office freed him up to write groundbreaking papers on theoretical physics, then why can’t a rack of crisp white cotton shirts paired with skinny jeans and ballet flats lead to career highs, or at least a clear head while doing the school run? It’s all relative.

Apart from a brief fling with lingerie worn as outerwear and a crush on pink angora, I’ve been wearing the same outfit since 1981: a black leather dress (I always have at least two, depending on how much I weigh) accompanied by black tights (because it’s Ireland), black ankle boots (because I live in the countryside with two big dogs), a fistful of rings, a full set of pointy acrylic nails varnished black, matte red lipstick and big hair (because I really want to live in the city). A black leather jacket studded with crystals for walks down the boreen, and a Peter O’Brien velvet-trimmed black wool swing coat and vertiginous heels for evenings out. Dog hair. Inappropriate? Probably. Still, in my signature look I feel empowered. There’s a kind of armour conferred in the wearing of black. 

Legions of New Yorkers adopt the colour head-to-toe in a bid to be taken more seriously at work, and for its sense of impenetrability on the mean streets. Wearing black feels at once powerful and magical; since Japanese Noh drama began in the 14th century, audiences have accepted the invisibility of black- clad stagehands moving sets and props. The arts community has truly embraced the black uniform; National Museum of Ireland curator Dr Jennifer Goff always looks chic in a black turtleneck and slacks and a singular striking brooch, all the better to deflect attention from herself and on to her brainchild, the museum’s Eileen Gray wing.

Interior designer Laura Farrell never met a stripe she didn’t like. When I caught up with her, she was wearing a striped sundress acquired during one of her regular family holidays in Liguria, a 1950s-inspired natural raffia basket bag punctuated by oversized bands of yellow and delicate gold sandals. “I keep buying the same things, in every colour under the sun. I’ve toyed with checks, but I’ve committed to the line, horizontal on top, trousers with a vertical stripe and metallic flats. When I was pregnant, I had to give up heels; it gave me a little lift to peer over my bump and see gold slippers.”

A friend is constantly on the prowl for the perfect funeral outfit. Not quite as extreme as cultural critic and writer Fran Lebowitz, who has her jackets made in Savile Row’s Anderson & Sheppard and her men’s shirts at Hilditch and Key, my friend has several stylish yet sombre similar suits sourced from secondhand designer resale shops in Dublin, London and Los Angeles. Timeless, appropriate and beautifully cut, the suits presently do double duty in divorce court, a look she describes as “pulled together but not brand new”, implying belt-tightening and hinting at having fallen on hard times.

From the tips of her purple hair to the toes of her high- wedge trainers, award-winning ex-RTÉ radio producer Martha McCarron is not afraid of colour. Tall, slim and stunning, she’s been wearing floaty, feminine, ankle length dresses in blacks, whites and purples since college. “I have clothes going back 30, 40 years; I’ve had to fix a few tiny little holes. I love simple, structured, pared back things with a nice neckline and a bit of edge – I adore Mariad Whisker and Ghost. Flat shoes with everything, runners in every colour. I’m in my sixties, but you can wear funky clothes no matter what age you are, if you have a sense of what works for you. It’s not vanity; I’m just so mad about clothes. I dress to give myself pleasure, and I don’t follow trends.”

Dublin-based Mexican urban artist Kathrina Rupit describes her look as “kind of tribal, yet urban. The colour of my skin is like the earth. I wear greens, browns, autumn colours, comfortable things in natural fabrics, jewellery made of seeds, wood. Organic materials ground me.” Dip-dyed dreadlocks in a coiled up-do, KINMX (Kathrina’s graffiti tag) is an exotic beauty with plummy lips and a feline flick. Rupit’s been wearing the same Indian-style drop-crotch harem pants and green cropped bomber jacket since she arrived in Ireland years ago. “It’s really nice to move in. I can jump around and paint in it. The pants, they crack, they have too much paint caked on them. I get my new pair every year at the Woodstock Festival in Poland.” Rupit’s uniform is eminently practical. “I love scarves. They’re always full of paint. When I go to a graffiti jam I wear a scarf under a vinyl mask to protect my skin. The rest of the time, in the studio, I use the scarf to clean splashes of paint off my face.” She had to get rid of her jacket when the faux fur framing the hood got stiff with paint, “It was like a dead cat. I found almost the same jacket, for €10, but I know it’ll end up the same way. When I saw it, I thought, it’s the twin.”