Twin sisters have dressed in identical outfits for 23 years - and have matching homes too
A pair of identical twin sisters have revealed that not only do they dress in matching outfits, but they also live next door to each other and have the same house decor.
Rosey Coles and Kathy Heffernan, both 69, love to dress the same when they go out together, even opting to wear the same pair of glasses and pyjamas when they go to bed.
Appearing on This Morning on Monday 25 September, the pair explained that they began dressing the same nearly 25 years ago when they both became single.
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"We both became separated in 2000. We used to spend a lot of time together, always shopping together, and that's how it happened," Kathy said.
The sisters have now worn matching outfits every day for 23 years. As well as sharing the same sense of style, the sisters also live next door to each other and for 11 years worked together at their cleaning business, though they have since retired.
"It's like being married to someone for 70 years," Heffernan, a mum-of-one, from Aldershot, Hampshire, says of their close relationship. "People see us and ask to take a photograph. They say they don't often see twins our age together."
Coles, a mum-of-two, adds: "When we go out, we wear the same things. For the last 23 years we've been together most days."
Growing up, from the age of 13, the sisters wore a lot of similar clothes, but stopped matching when they both got married and moved away from each other.
Coles married in 1974 and Heffernan followed her sister down the aisle three years later. The twins both separated from their husbands in 2000 and moved to live closer together, which is when they reignited their love of dressing the same.
In 2012 the sisters moved next door to each other and now also share identical looking flats.
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“We have exactly the same homes with the same layout and the same grey colour scheme," Heffernan says.
The duo now say they spend most days together – shopping, visiting villages and even going to doctors' appointments in tandem.
“We go on bus rides," Heffernan continues. "We go to a village to a café for a little trip out. Sometimes we go out for a drive."
Despite already owning a joint wardrobe of over 50 outfits, the fashion-loving twins can't help but purchase new clothes they can wear together. Their favourite look is 50s style dresses with petticoat skirts.
"We have so many clothes," Heffernan says. "We spent three hours in John Lewis the other day. I spent £600 on three dresses."
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The sisters say they love the compliments they receive on their matching outfits and don't mind when people struggle to tell them apart.
"People don't know who is who," Heffernan says. "We are very similar, it's creepy," Coles adds.
The sisters also love to go away together, recently going on a cruise to France and Spain in May 2023, making sure to pack the same clothes into their suitcase.
They plan to keep wearing matching outfits for the rest of their lives, but do sometimes wear different tops and jeans to one another if they are not venturing out.
"We don't like to wear something twice for an evening outfit," Heffernan says of their in-sync wardrobe. "We can't help but buy something new."
Twins: The facts
In 2021, the BBC reported that approximately 1.6 million twins are born each year worldwide, with one in every 42 children born a twin. Advancements in fertility treatment and delaying starting a family has seen twin birth rates increase by a third since the 1980s. Non-identical twins run in families.
Pregnancy charity Tommy's outlines the three types of twins:
Dichorionic diamniotic twins (DCDA) – each baby has a separate placenta and amniotic sac
Monochorionic diamniotic twins (MCDA) – the babies share a placenta but have separate amniotic sacs
Monochorionic monoamniotic twins (MCMA) – the babies share a placenta and amniotic sac
According to the NHS, identical (monozygotic) twins - such as Rosey Coles and Kathy Heffernan - occur when a single egg (zygote) is fertilised. The egg then splits, creating identical twins who share the same genes - and are the same gender.
Identical twins occur in roughly one third of twin pregnancies. Nobody knows what causes them and they do not run in families.
Discovering you're expecting twins can be overwhelming but there's plenty of help at hand. Visit Twins trust for advice, support and further information.
Additional reporting SWNS.
