The average onlooker would have no idea all the use Martin was getting out of her LOB. In the colder months, Alex Martin paired her Little Brown Dress with leg warmers and a knit top and called it good.

For the past 365 days, Alex Martin hasn't had a single fight with her closet.

No beat downs, ugly insults or temper tantrums in sight. Her bedroom floor hasn't been littered with dozens of garment rejects and her head hasn't been infiltrated by a single fashion demon.

What's her secret? It came in the form of a Little Brown Dress, which she made herself.

Martin has been slipping into the exact same dress day after day, month after month for the past year. Tomorrow, on her 30th birthday, she will end her year-long personal protest against consumerism and fashion, and remove what has become her second skin for good.

"I'm not sick of it," said Martin, a party planner and professional dancer in Seattle. "I actually have a little fear about taking it off, it's like I feel sorry for it."

If her thoughts sound a bit like a hostage taking pity on their kidnapper, then your mind frame is just the type Martin's project addresses. Although her Web site, www.littlebrowndress.com, asserts that the LBD project was an act of consumerism, Martin's strong feminist beliefs have also managed to rear their pretty little heads. On the FAQ section of her site, she addresses the feminist motive: "... let's stop agreeing that the best way for women (in particular) to 'express themselves' is by purchasing new wardrobe items and putting together daily outfits."

For the fashion maven who wouldn't think of wearing the same jeans twice in one week, Martin's project would be impossible. Either because their "self expression" would be limited or because the undeniable sense of security that clothes lend would be slaughtered. On the contrary, Martin found the LBD brought out a new confidence in herself.

Early on in the project, she found herself in a punk record store. She moseyed in wearing, of course, the mousy brown, big buttoned Carol Brady dress and started to feel a little like one of the Sesame Street kids "doing his own thing." She didn't like the feeling.

"Everyone was dressed so edgy, I felt weird in my brown dress," recalled Martin.

But, it quickly dawned on her that she'd have to get used to situations like this. She wasn't about to stop frequenting the places she fit so well into in her pre-LBD life and realized her discomfort was probably contradicting the purpose of the project.

"I realized it was great because now I can just be here. It was like erasing your surface," she said. "And I knew I was probably the most punk rock person in the joint, anyway."

As a woman who rarely wore dresses a year ago, the project has inadvertently brought out a certain girlishness in the usually makeup-less, always low maintenance Martin.

"I even cut my own hair," she said. "In a way (the dress) made me feel more feminine and slightly more put together. I'm usually more casual."

Martin, who was a thrift shopper in what now seems a former life, estimates she's saved a couple hundred dollars with her little anti-consumerism stint. That's just on clothes, though. She also decided she wouldn't use the project as an excuse to splurge on accessories or shoes, like a lot of her friends suggested.

"It's a project about not buying. It was so hard for people to understand that," Martin said.

It was hard for a lot of people, her partner included, to not only understand it, but accept the idea initially.

"She was very much against it at first," said Martin of her partner, Freya. "She thought I was a loony, but now she's very supportive. And hey, when we travel, she gets to pack most of the suitcase."

Once the people in her life got used to seeing Martin every day in some variation of the brown garment, they couldn't help but accept it as part of her. In some cases, it even took on a life of its own.

Originally, Martin made two dresses. One for everyday wear and the other for the more upscale events, like weddings, that she would be planning for clients. The second dress hasn't seen the light of day.

"My clients would say no (to wearing the nicer dress) because they had told all their friends about it," Martin said. "It was like they were inviting my dress to the party, it had a fan club all its own."

Once it comes time to shed the dress -- which she plans to do during an event that will be onepart birthday celebration and one part going away party -- Martin's not sure what the dress' fate will be.

"I haven't decided exactly what to do with it yet," she said. "At this point I just know we need our distance."