Louis Theroux has tackled a plethora of controversial topics throughout his career, including brothels, neo-Nazis, Scientology, cults, aliens and paedophilia.

He has also interviewed a number of famous faces, from Paul Daniels to Tiger King’s Joe Exotic. And he’s made a point of shattering taboos around maternal mental health, alcoholism, and addiction, too.

Apparently more important than all of that, though, is the uniform he donned for all of those big moments.

As fans of the celebrated documentary filmmaker will already be aware, much of Theroux’s old TV back catalogue is currently available to stream over on Netflix. And, during the coronavirus lockdown, many have dedicated themselves to watching (or rewatching) each and every single one of them, from Wild Weekends to LA Stories.

Of course, when you watch one episode directly after another – y’know, rather than waiting for weekly drops – you begin to notice little details you never spotted before. 

This was very much the case for Vicki Lynch, who took to Twitter to share her discovery with fellow fans.

“Have watched four or five early 00s Louis Theroux episodes this week,” she tweeted, “and have noticed he wears this shirt in every episode!”

Lynch, illustrating her point, shared a screenshot of Theroux in a classic brown utility shirt – one which proved instantly familiar to others on Twitter.

“It’s not a Louis Theroux documentary if he’s not wearing his brown shirt,” agreed one.

“The Theroux-niform!” added another, in an excellent display of punwork.

And one more added: “I thought [the shirt] was an investigative journalism standard issue, along with the glasses, long pauses, and chin rubbing.”

Theroux, for his part, wasn’t fazed by everyone’s sudden interest in his outfit-recycling.

“Been waiting nearly 20 years for someone to pick up on this,” he tweeted.

Of course, Matilda Kahl, a creative director in New York, previously wrote about how she has eliminated morning stress and boosted her productivity by wearing the same outfit to work every day for three years.

Her story was shared over 100,000 times and left many of us with one question on our minds: ‘Is this the secret to a more organised and relaxed life?’

There’s plenty of science to back Kahl’s views. Research in decision fatigue shows the more choices we make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for the brain. Eventually it seeks shortcuts to cope.

With that in mind, then, we should all follow in Kahl and Theroux’s footsteps and seek out a work uniform of our own, eh?

Images: Getty