What We Wore

As young children, we could not choose what we wore, whether it was worn
around the house, to school, to church or on a family outing. Even when we
reached the age where we could dress ourselves (I think in my case it was
seven, as I was a late bloomer) we didn’t have full jurisdiction over our
wardrobe until we bought our own clothes with money from our first paying
jobs. I didn’t hit that milestone until I was 17, as I was, once again, a
late bloomer.

In the years leading up to my clothing emancipation, my mode of dress was
influenced by my mother and, later, in a curious way, by my father. Under my
parent’s guidance, I may have turned out well, but I was not well
turned-out. Between the ages of 8-17, my everyday clothes could be described
variously as garish, ugly, threadbare, or grossly oversized. The mother
often takes the brunt of the blame for her child’s sloppy appearance, but I
can forgive mine on a couple of counts. First, she raised me, her youngest,
during the 1970’s, when American fashion was arguably at its lowest ebb.
Second, she was in her forties when I was born, leaving her further removed
that most parents from “what young people are wearing today.” Never having
had a career, she didn’t think about clothes much, unless she and my father
were going to a cocktail party. So maybe sending me off to school in bright
colored turtleneck shirts with hoop zippered pockets and red and blue
checkered pants is excusable. But purple button-down shirts mixed with plaid
pants? I still hold a small grudge there.

I must have accepted my sad fashion fate, because in seventh grade, while
rummaging through a little-used downstairs closet, I discovered two jackets
that had previously been worn be my much older siblings. Never mind that by
the time I started wearing them they were 10-15 years past their prime. My
sister’s navy down ski jacket that cam to may knees and leaked feathers
through torn patches kept me warm in the winter, but probably left me
looking like a Dickensian street urchin. My brother’s football-style jacket,
probably acquired in 1963, was my choice for spring and fall in 1977. Those
jackets don’t change much from year to year and my brother, like me, had a
slight build. So this particular hand-me-down worked OK, but I still felt
the need to use scissors to remove the sewn-on letters that spelled out his
prep school’s name. “Lawrenceville,” across the back.

Going away to school was out of the question for me because by the
mid-1970’s, both my parents and the household finances were showing signs of
wear. I may have picked up on this, which would explain why I happily, or
politely, accepted my father’s old watch and lacoste shirts as generous
gifts. Never mind that he was six foot four and over 200 pounds and I was
5’8” and weighed maybe 150. I still said: “Great, Dad, Thanks,” to those
alligator shirts I practically disappeared in.

But why? Why did I readily accept the castoffs, the table scraps, the
ill-fitting, out-of-date shirts, jackets and ties? I don’t know. Maybe I
wanted to be agreeable, a common baby of the family syndrome.  Or perhaps I
wanted to be unique, a fashion plate of recent vintage clothing. Another
motive could have been guilt—a feeling that I was draining the resources of
a family whose best years were long gone. When our house had to be sold, I
pulled those old clothes our again, but this time I put them in shopping
bags, ready to be taken away with the other unsold junk. There were things I
knew I’d miss when I walked out of the house for the last time, but not
those clothes. Or the baggage.