Today - let’s talk about a favorite article of clothing or accessory you used to love to wear - it could be a necklace, a hat, a jacket, a favorite t-shirt, your batman costume.
Tell us a little bit about it and let’s all smile together! Debby Downers - please move along - there’s nothing to see here
My first one:
When I was younger my mom used to have this necklace with a carved white rose on it. It wasn’t the side of the rose - it was like you were looking at the top of it. It was so delicate and pretty and the once or twice my mom let me wear it, I always felt all girly - which was weird because I remember wearing it during my more tomboy phase. I wonder if my mom even still has that . . .
Anyone remember The Scarecrow? I loved that. I made my own Scarecrow mask out of some scrap of cloth I found lying around. I was freakin’ awesome in that mask.
I loved Batman so much as a kid that I used to tray and make my own Batman masks out of scrap cloth. I taught myself to sew at about 8 or 9 years old. I’m the go-to guy in my family now for missing buttons, etc.
When I was little my mom never let me wear jeans. She thought only farmers wore jeans, so they were verboten. I wore many dresses, skirts, and cotton pants.
For Christmas 1976 she bought me a pair of pink cordouroy pants. I was positive they made me run as fast as Jaime Sommers (The Bionic Woman). Love, love, loved them. Wore them as much as possible.
Then, when I was 13, Guess? brand was becoming all the rage, but they were not available easily. She heard about a special sale at some boutique on the otherside of Minneapolis, woke me up early, and off we went. I remember there was a long line outside the store - Mom worried there wouldn’t be anything left in my size, being tall and muscular. They did. I got my first pair of jeans - not just any jeans, but the coveted Guess? jeans. I felt so cool.
And now, 27some years later, I am back to not liking jeans. Go figure.
When I was little I had a Disney-version Cinderella book. I also had a far superior version, but the Disney one had a picture of the two ugly stepsisters dancing together and one of them was wearing this really keen purple dress. My grandma told one of her friends how I yearned for it, and that lady presented me with one of her grown daughter’s cast-offs. It was dark purple velvet with long sleeves, and on me, it hung to the floor.
I “played Cinderella” almost every day, which is to say I went about my ordinary routine, inwardly just a-groovin’ on my Purple Dress!
Me as well. When I was little about six or seven I was obsessed with flying like Superman I really wanted to fly so bad I would often dream about it. I also used a towel and a large safety pin to attach my cape and “fly” around the house. I would also tie a washer to a piece of sting and spin it around in front of me like a propeller.
Every fall we would hit the Eaton’s TransCanada sale.
The year I was in grade 6 (I think) I got green cords, purple cords, a green flannel shirt, a purple flannel shirt, a green sweater and a purple vest. I wore some combo of those items pretty much all winter, and thought I was the height of cool.
I also had a Swatch watch, the kind with the “jelly” strap. I’m guessing my mother got sick of me trying to wear hers. Man, I wish I still had it.
My son, bless his heart, wanted to be Darth Vader and asked me to make him a cape. We didn’t have any extra money for me to buy material so he wore a pink polyester cape from fabric I had on hand.
He loved that stoopid cape and I can still see him, “sun sword” in hand, dashing about in the yard looking a bit silly but totally enchanted with his Vaderness.
My favorite was a little red blazer with two rows of shiny brass-like buttons down the front and pockets on the sides. I loved that thing. Nowadays I don’t dress nearly as well as I did in grade school.
My favorite outfit of all time was from when I was 8 or so, so late 70s. It consisted of a peasant-style white blouse with poofy red sleeves and a farm scene on the front, with tractor, apple trees, etc. Paired with bell bottoms that were mostly denim, but the “bells” were green fabric from the knee down. And on these green bells were… big appliqued roosters - one on each leg. Man I loved that outfit.
I can do worse. In grade three I had a pair of turquoise sweatpants, a pair of purple ones, and a turquoise sweater and a purple sweater. I also had socks in these colours, and I’d wear combos of them all the time. I’m sure it was hideous.
That summer, my sister cut her ankle on something (glass?) in a creek we were playing in, and my mom - instead of grabbing the first aid kit in the car - grabbed my favourite turquoise socks to use as a bandage to stop the bleeding (sis ended up having to get stitches). I was so mad that she used my favourite socks even though I had remembered that we had a first aid kit in the car - to this day, I still joke that she ruined my life in that moment!
When I was about 8 I slipped and fell, cutting my knee which required 5 stitches. I wasn’t upset about the blood, the doctors, or the needles – I was just upset I ruined my favorite pants!!
In middle school I had a pair of light pink jeans with black “splatter paint” on them… I even bought them in Greenwich Village! OMG teh coolness (it was 1987).
I had a maroon polyester jumpsuit with a shiny big brass zipper up the front with a ring hanging off the zipper. It was the 70’s. I apologize. Unfortunately, when you’re growing quickly, a one-piece outfit really becomes uncomfortable in the crotch area.
I don’t remember having any particular piece of clothing I loved to death…the hand-me-downs from my cousin were consistently horrible…but a boy in my third grade class took to wearing a fancy cowboy shirt every single day, which caused me to fall madly in love with him. We exchanged torrid love notes for about two weeks. Then he broke his collarbone and couldn’t wear the fancy cowboy shirt anymore.
So I dumped him.
Sorry, Stuart. I’m not that shallow anymore.
Gosh, I hope his mom was washing that shirt every night!
My mother bought me a mauve paisley Regency style dress when I was 10 that I LOVED. It made me feel so old fashioned and girly. I wore that dress every other day all year long. Alas I outgrew it but it lived on for many more years on the backs of my many younger cousins. Come to think of it I’d wear a dress like that today
When I was 3 or 4, I had a really cool pair of Disney flipflops. Every surface of the flipflops except the bottom of the sole was a lenticular surface, and underneath the ridges were a few sequential frames of animation. You could tilt the shoe and watch an animated Donald Duck or Goofy or whatever. On my feet! Those shoes amazed me.
Kinda funny now, since I really can’t stand Disney animation, and hate flipflops.
When I was 6 or 7, I had this Pac-Man Halloween costume. The full costume was worn once, but I quickly discovered that the Shinto-demon-like mask gave my mom the creeps, and that I could absolutely scare the crap out of her if I did things like wear the mask and loom over her as she was waking up. That mask saw lots of use for a couple of years.
Recently, I was digging through some boxes and discovered that I still had the entire outfit! Time to go visit mom, I think.
