My Worn Story

In her book Worn Stories, Emily Spivack recorded peoples’ memories of a piece of clothing that they still had in their possession. If Emily had asked me to choose a piece of my clothing, I would have instantly answered, “My patched jeans.” I will never part with these jeans, even though I haven’t fit into them for decades.

Emily Spivack says that our clothes are full of memory and meaning. This must be true because as I sit here writing, I can feel my chest tighten and tears come into my eyes. It’s not the memory of my patched jeans that bring on the tears, it is the memory of the clothes that came before.

My parents couldn’t afford to buy me clothes, so I was at the mercy of hand-me-downs. Most castoffs came from a cousin who was several years older and much bigger than me. I was often the third or fourth owner of these dresses. The clothes were both worn and out of fashion when they were passed on to me.

By the time I was in the third grade, I was used to wearing castoff clothes. I had never owned a dress that hadn’t been previously worn by another girl. I was also used to being teased about my clothes by the mean girls in my class.

In the 1960s, a version of old-fashioned pantaloons became popular. Pantaloons were made from a slightly sheer fabric with rows of gathered lace along the hemline. The garment was meant to be worn underneath your dress.

I wanted a pair of pantaloons in the worst way. It seemed like I was the only girl in my class who didn’t own a pair.

Because girls weren’t allowed to wear pants to school back then, tights were commonly worn under our dresses to keep our legs warm during the cooler seasons. Tights didn’t have a long shelf life with active girls. Inevitably, I would wear a hole through the knees of my tights.

In fifth grade, after wearing a hole through my pair of tights, the idea hit me that I could “repurpose” my tights instead of throwing them away. I took my tights and cut them off just above the hole in the knee. This solved two problems, the first being my desire for a pair of “pantaloons.” It also provided me with a much-needed pair of “underwear”, which were also in short supply growing up.

I had to stretch my imagination to make them resemble the real pantaloons my classmates wore but, all and all, I was happy with my knockoff version. All was fine until one day when I was making my way across the monkey bars at recess. I happened to glance down and saw a girl standing next to a teacher, she poked the teacher and told her to look up at me. Looking at their faces, I remembered that my tights had a hole in the crotch. I was horrified.

The summer after eighth grade, I got a job babysitting. I worked ten-hour days, Monday thru Friday, for fifteen dollars a week. It was with this money that I bought my first pair of Levi jeans. The following year we moved to another part of the state. The jeans came with me, and the mean girls stayed behind.

Soon after moving to town, I met Marilyn and Wendy. They became my true friends, the kind that changes your life. They helped me mend my damaged self-esteem and helped me to grow into the person that I was before I believed the mean girls’ lies.

Before I knew it, my jeans began to fade and the fabric weakened. One day, a hole appeared in the knee of my jeans. In the past, this hole would have felt like a disaster. But, the year was 1969, and my jean’s life was just beginning.

It was Marilyn who helped me put the first patch on my jeans. Reaching into a bag she pulled out a handful of suede and leather scraps. She told me to choose one and pointed me to her sewing machine. And so began the transformation of a regular pair of jeans into a pair of flower power, hippie-girl jeans.

Ripped jeans that would have resulted in jeers at my old school, a few years earlier, were now thought to be “groovy”. And bit-by-bit, patch-by-patch, my jeans evolved into the coolest jeans on the block.

Every so often, I take my patched jeans out of the closet. I am reminded that good friends are indispensable and that clothes, do not make the person. I strive to remember that the clothes I wear on the outside of me, never outshine the person that I am on the inside.

With Love & Energy by the Pond,

Laurel

laurel@energybythepond.com