The embroidered tee shirt my grade school friend gave me for my birthday.
The dress I wore when my husband proposed.
The skirt I bought on my honeymoon in Costa Rica.
The comforter I conceived our daughter under.
It’s not the clothes. It’s what I did when I wore them.
I had to get rid of my best jeans a couple of months ago. They were too long, and when the bottom hem got tattered, I just cut them off. Then, a couple of years ago, some chlorine spilled on them, and left a dime sized white mark on one thigh. That mark turned into a quarter sized hole, that turned into a six inch rip. That rip was mended, but another long one formed up the side of the leg, and the jeans had to go. They’d long been unsuitable for public, and I could no longer justify wearing them around the house either. They were as soft as flannel by the end. sniff
Ha! Mrs. Small keeps mentioning that a quarter of the clothes that I own are in too bad of shape to wear (and another quarter I’m in too bad of shape to fit into anymore). I keep all these in a few nice plastic bins in our storage unit. I’m convinced that the day I throw away my favorite shirts in there, I’ll lose the 20-30 pounds and fit in them again. Specifically, one that says “Pioneers” on the front and is a softball jersey I found at goodwill.
I also have the best shirt in the world - says something about Airstream Campers Group Reunion and has a large camper on it. I thought it was just a dopey shirt, but apparently there truly was a reunion and those folks had them, cause it wasn’t just some random shirt from a store that ended up at the Salvation Army.
Brendon Small
My jeans and a tye-dyed shirt I got off of eBay a couple years ago.
When one of my Dead tie-dyes begins to show a little wear, I remove it from “active” rotation. I currently have 92 different tie-dyes active, so each is worn only about once every three months. I have about 30 that have been de-activated. Once a shirt is removed from the active rotation, it is worn only on a special occasion – but more often than not, never again. My favorite show dyes have gone from active rotation, to frames on my wall so that I may still enjoy them.
Any Nashvillians here may remember the radio station 103.3 KDF before its 1999 switch to country music. I have a KDF tshirt that I’ve had since it was baggy and hit mid thigh. Now its pretty form fitting and full of holes. Truly my marathon shirt.
I had hoped to keep my favorite pair of Columbia walking shorts, but they got a small hole in them that became a large hole during the exertions of our recent move. They were light, comfy and had pocketses with zippers.
I am holding on to the tye-dyed t-shirt my friends gave me as a sendoff from Berkeley to my new job in Ohio. There is a rip in a sleeve seam, but I think I can get it fixed.
Jeans, of course.
I’ve got a sweatshirt from Duke which is 19 years old. It formerly belonged to an aunt and I somehow ended up with it when I was wee and it was down to my knees or so. I still wear it to bed. It’s not terribly warm anymore, but dayum is it comfy. My mother has pled with me to get rid of it (it originally started as gray and white; now it’s just gray and gray and the letting has worn off entirely), but there’s no way.
I also had a pair of sneakers I wore daily for about three years, then for another year or two as slippers. I finally wore a hole all the way through the sole and had to toss them.
I realized recently that I’ve owned my leather jacket for more than half my life. I still think it looks pretty good, except the seam that’s unraveling at the cuff. I bought it at a yard sale, borrowing the money from my parents, so I don’t know how old it really is. I have a couple other jackets, but it’s still the one I wear most.
My most painful t-shirt retirement was probably my Rorschach shirt. My head went through the back one day when I tried to put it on.
(bolding added)
What an appropriate acronym in this thread.
Chucks
I have a grey wool men’s sweater (I’m a woman) that I got 11 years ago at J Crew (for $29.95) that I will most certainly wear until it falls off in tatters.
Last summer, when I was preparing to evacuate my home due to approaching wild fires, I looked around my bedroom and picked my photographs, my passport/other documents, and my favorite grey sweater as the things to take with me. Everything else could burn. If that doesn’t speak to how much I love that thing…
I only wear it around the house now, though. It’s got terrible frays around the bottom hem and holes in the sleeves. It’s really scratchy and all stretched out and (if I force myself to be honest) I can’t honestly tell you why I like the damned thing so much. But I do.
My elephant-polo team shirt. Looks cool as all get-out.
My father used to work in ceramics in the 80s and brought me back a tshirt (when I was a wee tot) that has a ceramic phase diagrammed on the front and “Nothing Phases a Ceramic Engineer” on the back.
Believe me, I managed to fill it out a lot better eventually. I definitely worked it to my advantage to get cute science dorks to talk to me. Unfortunately, someone stole it with 2 gel bras and 7 victoria’s secret thongs from my laundry at some point.
It was from a conference so I can’t just buy another one.
I’ve got a 1991 Zilker Kite Contest t-shirt from Austin that I wore for some years, then my son stole and wore for several, and then I stole it back from him a couple years ago. It’s still not got a single hole in it, amazingly. Actually, my oldest t-shirts are the most durable – I’ve also got a Texas bluebonnets t-shirt and a Don’t Mess With Texas t-shirt that I got in the late '80s that are 100% intact. They’re all getting thin, but they’re butter-soft, great for sleeping.
I’ve also got a tourist Washington DC sweatshirt that I got in 1993 that I was wearing earlier today. It’s a bit thin, too, but also wonderfully comfortable as a result. The lettering is even still intact in spite of having had at least a thousand washings by now.
Have one made.