Closeted Memories

“I like my memories where I can see them, hanging in my closet”

Each fashion collection is inspired by an aspect of the designer’s life. Each piece of clothing or accessory has it’s own story to tell along with the one you make while wearing it. Fashion is more than a form of self expression. It shows aesthetic, authenticity, even disguise. Throughout your wardrobe “there are hints about you, who you are in what you wear” as designer Marc Jacobs explains it. Fashion is a form of self revelation as it peers into windows of your past while at the same time showing off what you aspire to be. Take dress up for example. The princess, the doctor, the entertainer, the tom boy, the fireman it is all just play, but how many of those outfits that we were drawn to as children reveal an aspect of our personalities? Like Kate Spade said, “playing dress up begins at age 5 and never truly ends” we are constantly trying on clothing to fit with who we are as an individual and most of those decisions in the dressing room are made by asking one question: “When will I ever wear that?” Simple enough, if you don’t see yourself making memories in the outfit you are less likely to take it home.

We relate each piece of clothing hanging up in our closets with a specific memory or multiple occasions good or bad. It’s like a scrap book made of clothes and shoes hanging up or folded in your drawers. Why do we keep the old prom dress from senior year of high school or a wedding dress we will only wear once if you are lucky? The old letterman jacket or class ring you spent years working to decorate? Your ex’s old t-shirt or the gifts they may have given you? They all serve as reminders and evidence of your past. Is it wrong to keep these as reminders or is it better to let go of what is hanging and make space for something new. Maybe the attachments to the jewelry and the gifts reveals the relationship between you and the person who gave them to you. Maybe memories associated with these particular pieces of clothing are reminders of the things that made you the person you are today. In a way, continuing to wear something is your way of acceptance and reclaiming that moment in your past, building character and the story not only behind the clothes but the person who is wearing them.

So for all the hours spent just sitting in your closet or sifting through your dressers and staring at all of your clothes are justified. Different pieces create different statements and deciding on one that fits who you are in that moment of time can be difficult. Claiming you have nothing to wear really means nothing fits the part of yourself you want to show that day. This is where shopping can be therapeutic. Makeovers bring change and fresh starts. Washing clothes symbolize the cleansing of the days wear and tear. Whether we are a hot mess or falling apart at the seams the holes, the stains, the messes are how we often describe our daily lives.

One of the first things a visitor remembers about the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. is the endless line of shoes and the stripped pajamas that were savaged from what was left of the concentration camps. In this way they serve as a memorial, a lesson, history. Similarly a few blocks down the road one can find Dorothy’s ruby slippers on display at the American History Museum. As we all know from the movie she took a hell of a journey while wearing those shoes. There is a reason why a show relies so heavily on costumes because they tell an important part of the story within itself such as the setting, the time period, the character’s personality, social status, and occupation. With each decade there are identifiable fads that bring us back to a different part of our society’s history and the traditions and memories belonging to them.

We continue to buy shirts at every place we go, every concert or show we attend as keep sakes. We look back at our old baby clothes to see how far we have come and appreciate the nostalgia of it all. As fashion changes so do people and their experiences, making room for new and things and new memories. At the end of the day we strip down our past and hang up a new memory or leave a trail of reminisce from the night before on the floor. What is left is apart of what defines who we are whether it is bold, classic, fierce, unique, or beautiful.