Many people attach sentimental value to various pieces of their clothing. The emotional value may come from the person that gave it to them, what happened to them while wearing the piece, how the piece speaks to who they are, or a number of other situations. Clothing of sentimental value will often retain its place in a person’s closet long after its owner has outgrown it and will survive numerous “spring-cleaning” donation drives. However, clothing pieces with sentimental value are rarely ever brought out of their sacred place in the closet to be worn again, and tend to have the same function as an old photograph in a photo album. They’re kept for occasional reminiscence, but not for outright display. My first interviewee, Elise, models this situation, while my second, Chandra, incorporates her sentimental clothing into her daily wardrobe.

Elise

Elise was born in California, but considers Oregon her home. Her personal style has remained largely the same throughout her life, although she says that small changes have been to reflect her growing confidence in the way her body is shaped. Elise told me, “I’m proud of my tummy because it fits proportionally with the rest of my body”. She now enjoys wearing clothing that complements her curves, as opposed to hiding them. Elise’s daily wardrobe is geared more towards personal comfort than fashion. On school days, she will wear pants, usually jeans, with a simple shirt and a jacket or sweater for warmth. She is active in the Wellesley Debate club, and enjoys the confidence that wearing a pantsuit gives her, and expressed disappointment in how casual college debate is in comparison to high school debate.

Elise has multiple items with sentimental value in her closet. Interestingly, when I asked her about sentimental clothing, nearly every piece she showed me had a connection one of her family members. She has multiple hand-me-down pieces, most from her mom, including combat boots given to her mother in college and an Epcot sweatshirt from her parents’ honeymoon. Her favorite pantsuit was a Christmas gift from her parents during her senior year of high school. She also has several homemade items of clothing, all of which were made for her by her grandmother. Elise’s grandmother had a tradition of making clothing for her grandchild at the beginning of every school year and for Christmas “ever since first grade”, although she now chooses to pay for shopping trips with them instead. Much of Elise’s clothing with sentimental value is not worn outside of her room, or not worn on a regular basis. The only piece that she wears regularly are her mother’s combat boots. She has two skirts that were made for her by her grandmother, only one of which she has worn one time since transferring her closet to Wellesley. She also has a dress made of fortune-cookie print fabric that she has not worn since the Christmas that her grandmother gave it to her. On the dress, Elise said, “It’s a tribute to her first first day of school dress for me in first grade which was a similar print and she embroidered on the front, ‘You are one smart cookie.'”

Chandra

Chandra was born and raised in Massachusetts. Her style has remained the same for as long as she has been dressing herself. She enjoys wearing t-shirts, usually graphic tees with depictions of favorite childhood characters or “old-school animation type stuff”, jeans, and jackets or hoodies. She loves music and goes to multiple concerts throughout the year, and usually buys a t-shirt at each concert. She wears her concert t-shirts regularly. When she attends Senate meetings, which requires business casual wear, she wears dark jeans and a blouse, but changes out of the blouse as soon as she gets back to her dorm. She noted that she avoids wearing dresses, but has the dress that she wore to her high school graduation ceremony because her mother urged her to bring one dress with her to college.

When I asked Chandra if she had any clothing with sentimental value, her response was that almost all of her wardrobe had some form of sentimental value. She said that her clothes show, “something I’m interested in that I want to share with people”. She rotates through about 14 graphic tees every two weeks, and each one has a depiction of a favorite character on them. She has many more graphic tees, but her parents told her she had to limit the amount of t-shirts she brought with her to college. She rotates her choices when she visits home. She noted that she has about 7 Nightmare Before Christmas graphic tees, but only has 3 in her dorm closet.  Chandra expressed that she could not care less how people perceive her based on her dress, but she does enjoy when people comment on on her shirts, saying, “It helps with the peers, they’ll be like, ‘Oh my god, I haven’t watched the Powerpuff Girls in years!'” When she is at home, Chandra works in the children’s section of a public library, and enjoys when children recognize their favorite characters on her t-shirts. Some of her t-shirts, such as the Nightmare Before Christmas ones, she does not wear to the library. Unlike Elise, most of her graphic tees do not have an emotional connection to one of her family members, although one of her t-shirts is a hand-me-down from her brother, who had outgrown it. She does not have many direct hand-me-downs, although she noted that she does have one of her dad’s U2 concert t-shirts, which she wears for a pajama shirt.

Conclusion

Elise and Chandra represent two ends of the spectrum when it comes to dressing with clothing of sentimental value. Elise has kept sentimental pieces of clothing with her for years, choosing to bring many pieces with her to college despite knowing that she will not wear them. Although Elise does not dress for fashion, she dresses in a conventional way, and thus chooses to filter out many of her sentimental pieces from her wardrobe. On the other hand, Chandra chooses to almost exclusively wear clothing that depicts something that means a lot to her, and enjoys sharing her interests with people through her clothing. She does not conform to fashion trends. Her choice of clothing can often help her to connect with peers and with the children that she works with.

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