The Postscript: Used clothes

I wear used clothes.

I remember going to clothing stores years ago and buying new clothes. But about the time I stopped wearing business suits and flying in airplanes for work, I started going to used clothing stores. Then I discovered online consignment stores and, since then, I’ve hardly bought a new item of clothing except socks and shoes and underwear.

I like used clothes.

Of course, I like the prices. I’ve always been frugal and when I see how much a pair of new jeans cost or a new dress, I am shocked. But buying used clothes also eliminates buyer’s regret. If the jeans I bought refuse to stay on my hips, or the color of a top is brighter than I like, or my sister tells me I look like an automatic car wash in the new dress I bought for Christmas (and once you see a thing like that, it’s hard to unsee), I can donate the clothes to another used clothing store and let them go on their merry way to the next customer, guilt-free.

My mother tells me she wore almost exclusively hand-me-downs as a child, which is not surprising since she was the ninth of 11 children, and most of them were girls. She remembers when she got what she called her “Joyce coat,” which delighted her to no end because, instead of coming from several sisters before her, this coat had been owned by only one person — a neighbor named Joyce — before my mother got it. There is a picture of her standing in front of the farmhouse wearing her Joyce coat, and she looks very pleased.

I was much more spoiled and usually had new clothes as a child. I occasionally got hand-me-downs from a neighbor across the street who was the same age as me but much taller. Lynn was the youngest in her family and the only girl, so she had a lot of nice clothes that she quickly outgrew. I remember I got a beautiful green dress from Lynn that required about an hour to iron. My mother was grateful when I also outgrew it.

These days, I occasionally wonder where my clothes came from.

It sometimes feels wicked to imagine my clothes living on someone else’s body. I imagine there are people who wouldn’t like the idea, and that’s why they buy new clothes. But I have lived in plenty of houses where other people have lived, so the idea that my clothes have had another life is not troubling.

Still, it would be interesting to know the history of my clothes. They are usually in good shape and a lot of my used dresses still have the tags on and little bags of extra buttons, which I promptly lose. I wonder why a particular dress never worked out. I wonder if it was purchased for some occasion that never materialized. I wonder if that was disappointing. Maybe it was bought to wear when the owner lost 20 pounds that remained stubbornly where they were. I will never know. But at some point, someone decided it would be better to get a few pennies on the dollar than to keep it in their closet, and that is where every dress I own has come from.

“Where have you been?” I want to ask. The dress remains mum. And that’s OK.

I imagine my dress had a very dull life, living in someone’s closet, never being worn. It makes me want to put that dress on and make sure I have an especially good time while wearing it.

Till next time,

Carrie

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Carrie Classon is married to Havre native Peter Heimdahl. Her memoir, “Blue Yarn: A Memoir About Loss, Letting Go, & What Happens Next,” was published in 2019. Photos and other things can be found on Facebook at CarrieClassonAuthor.