COMMITMENT COMPLETE: 365 DAYS OF DDR

Who among us has ever actually kept a New Year’s resolution? Like, truly committed to it and followed it through to the end of the year? Probably not many of us, if we’re being honest, but maybe we’re just making the wrong kinds of resolutions! Contrary to what we’ve probably been conditioned to think, a resolution doesn’t have to be something hard or that we hate. One very stylish sister made it her mission to don DDR every single day of 2024, and we are beyond impressed to report that she DID IT!

If you’re on social media, you’ve likely been following along as the precious and petite Heather Burch has posted her daily pics rocking some sort of Double D. She’s curated a whole collection of some new, some vintage, and some swapped from sisters in the Buy/Sell Facebook group, and for an entire year she wore a DIFFERENT DDR outfit – that’s right, in case you weren’t keeping track, Heather never repeated a piece! Unreal!

Heather traveled down from Middleton, Idaho, to attend the 2024 Addiction Meetup in July and we sat down with her while she was at the Mothership to learn about her, her journey with Double D Ranch, and this very fashionable feat!

For starters, we wanted to know how she was first introduced to the brand.

“I came across Double D, there was a shirt on eBay that I liked,” Heather said. “And it had a skull on it, and at the time I was into skulls, so that's how I found my first piece.”

That’s not an origin story we hear very often, but an unconventional introduction evolved into an unconventional resolution.

“I decided to make my New Year's resolution doing something in Double D Ranch every day for a year,” Heather explained. “Because one, everybody's New Year's resolutions typically are the same – want to lose weight, get in shape, so forth. I just like to be different and unique, so I thought, ‘Hey, I'll see if I can challenge myself and take a picture of myself wearing something Double D every day.’"

What a revolutionary concept – that New Year’s resolutions can actually be something you WANT to do! But, as it turns out, just because it’s fun doesn’t mean it’s not quite a commitment.

“There [were] days that as the day gets going, it's like eight o'clock my time, so it's nine o'clock Texas time that I'm like, "Oh, I got to get it together. I got to put my face on or do something with my hair and figure out an outfit real quick.’,” she said. “But I think probably the most challenging thing is not photographing something that I've already photographed. So, I started a pile of ‘this has been photographed’, and I just don't put it back on.”

While the task of seeking out and styling the DDR daily ‘fits was all on Heather, she did have some help (and adorable encouragement) in the documentation department.

“My photographer is my amazing husband, Warren Burch,” she said. “Fortunately, he works from home, and I'm retired. So, I just will walk by his office kind of slow, and if he looks over at me, then I'm able to be like, ‘Hey, can you come outside and snap a quick photo?’ He’s been super great, and he's also committed. He will definitely pick out different backgrounds. He's definitely into lighting different things. There's sometimes that I am not ready for a picture, but he will say, ‘Hey, it's really great lighting outside. You should go get something Double D on, and I'll snap some pictures.’ ”

Ok, so you’re probably all wondering the same thing we were: how do you even OWN that much DDR?!

“I have had to buy quite a bit,” Heather admitted. “I thought I had a lot, but I've definitely had to buy some. But I've been able to find some awesome things on eBay or Poshmark, so that's been super handy. And Warehouse Wednesday also helps. And we've got the Addiction resale site, so if I can find something on there that if I can snag it before somebody else has snagged it, that's also been awesome. I have had a couple of gals who've just messaged me directly and have said, ‘Hey, I've got this piece for sale in your size. Would you like to have it?’ And I snag those up as fast as I can.”

Heather’s obviously amassed quite the collection, is it possible to even pick a favorite?

“Probably my favorite vintage find, I don't know what the name of it is, but it's the vest that I wore, and it says DDRW,” she said. “And I wore that a few months ago just because I have not found another piece that says DDRW.”

She’s right, we have since dropped the ‘wear’ from our branding, so that is kind of a collector in a way! But, in the end, the overall takeaway and most rewarding part of this endeavor, wasn’t even actually about the clothes.

“I guess I would say probably the thing that I think about the most is, and I don't want to get emotional, but the gals' responses to my posts have been awesome,” she said. “So, I mean, sometimes it's easy to come up with an outfit. In my mind, I think it looks good. I don't know if other gals will post and say something. But when they comment, and they're, my gosh, just so supportive. And at first, I thought when I was posting these that maybe somebody was going to say, ‘What are you doing? Why are you doing this?’ But it's just been amazing. So, the clothes are one part, but I think just the support that I've gotten from the rest of the DDR Wolf Pack, I would say that probably is what [kept] me going.”

We checked in with her again a few days ago, after the New Year, to see how she was feeling about it all coming to an end.

“It’s the first New Year’s resolution that I actually completed, so I’m pleased with myself for that,” Heather said. “I’m a little torn between ‘Whew, it’s over!’ and ‘What should I do now?’.”

So, what IS she planning to do now, you ask? Well, something just as cool, but perhaps a little less daunting.

“Learn to sew,” she said. “I can mend small things with a needle & thread, but I don’t know how to run a machine. I want to learn because I have so many DDR pieces that are too big for me so I want to be able to alter them to fit me, and I want to stop taking all my pants to my tailor and just hem them myself. I also want to make Aurora (the most beautiful 5-month old granddaughter ever) some tiny DDR clothes!”