I still put on a “princess hat” every Halloween that I bought at Disney World more than three decades ago. One year I didn’t put it on and the mother taking her kid around trick or treating was so disappointed.
Probably a t-shirt… most of my favorites from “back in the day” have holes/paint spots, but I’ve still got a couple of shirts from music festivals, like a couple from Seattle’s Bumbershoot (let’s see, Stan Freberg was there that year… that’s got to be almost 40 years old).
Hmm, I’ll look some more…
[tempus does that fugity thing…]
Ok, I’m back. I found a denim workshirt with “S.S. Murgatroid” stenciled across the back.
That’s over fifty years old, from the time a bunch of us Explorer Scouts built a raft and spent nine days floating down the Mississippi.
If we’re talking about wearing parents’ clothes…
I used to wear my dad’s old leather bomber jacket when I was in high school and college. I loved it. Sometimes, I’d wear old fashioned goggles as a headband that my mom wore when she rode in the sidecar of an old bf’s motorcycle.
But in the 40s my mom was an executive secretary in the SF bay area. I knew it was a decent job for the times. She said she’d shop at the City of Paris for her work suits, the jackets of which I’d wear a bunch as a teen. She’d tell me to be careful with them because those suits cost $60!!! I was curious to see what 1944 $60 would be worth today — $950!!! Dang, mom.
I have an overcoat that I am wearing in a picture from 1986 when I was a teenager.
I can’t fit into it now though. I’m only an inch and a half taller than I was 35 years ago, but my shoulders are so much wider I can’t get my arms into the sleeves.
I have an L.L. Bean plaid flannel shirt that was my husband’s before it became mine. He is wearing it in a Christmas photo in 1993; he might have had it before then. I have been wearing it regularly since 1997 when I stole it during my pregnancy and I needed a comfy oversized shirt.
It’s been worn literally every fall/winter for nearly 30 years. The cuffs are frayed, but it wasn’t until this past fall that it was so thin in one place that it became a hole. I still wear it. I will wear it until it falls off me.
I have a couple of 30+ year old Puma logo t-shirts that are still in good shape and are worn at least a couple of times a year.
If shoes count as garments, there’s a pair of heavy duty hiking/snow boots in my closet dating back to the late '80s that get hauled out and worn every once in a great while. Seeing how we’ve had 15 inches of snow already this winter in my part of Kentucky, I should go dig them out.
I forgot to mention that I have a 12-foot-long scarf, which my then-girlfriend knit for me in 1984. She found a pattern for re-creating the signature scarf that Tom Baker wore on Doctor Who, as the photo below. I wear it a few times a year, mostly when it’s extremely cold out, and I can wrap the scarf around me several times.
Lots
- I’ve done one event for the past 18 years, every year we get a sweatshirt, usually a hoodie but sometimes a crewneck. I rotate thru all of them throughout the colder months but typically wear that first year’s crewneck to the event every year. Was wearing the one from the second year today.
- I’ve been a polar bear for 23 years now; have that collection of shirts that goes thru the rotation & have a pair of polar bear PJ bottoms that get worn to every plunge that are in the upper-teens years old.
- I have a couple of old running t-shirts that are older than some of the kids in my run club! Back then they were what we called “earn shirts” as you got them at the finish line of the race so they couldn’t be donated because someone could end up wearing it who didn’t earn it. Honor among thieves type of thing as anyone wearing one you knew was in a select group.
- Also have a couple of old sweaters that used to get worn but have hardly worn anything nice in the past two years.
Uh-uh. (Sebago) Docksiders were The Shit. Topsiders were the crappy knockoff. Same as you, they’re basically slippers that I can wear outside (or inside when the feet get cold) I’m actually wearing them right now, but they’re the second (or third?) pair as the originals had the leather wear out.
Some very cool stories in this thread!
I bought a long-sleeved check shirt in 1985 that still fits me fine and has hardly faded.
In second place is the ‘Party Time 89’ t-shirt that functioned as the admittance ticket for a college party.
In 1999, my sister gave me a nice plaid flannel shirt for my birthday. I’m wearing it right now, actually. It’s not in the best shape–my cats loved to nap on my lap when I was wearing it, and they would start kneading–so there are a few pulled threads. But it is warm and comfortable in winter.
Not quite what the OP is looking for, but I’ll mention it anyway: my military sweater. Note that I was never in the military, but my buddy was in the Canadian Armed Forces, from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. He was issued the sweater as part of his kit, and kept it when he left the Forces.
He’s a farmer, and one winter day in about 1995, I was helping him on his farm. It was outdoor work, and very cold outside, and he determined that I didn’t have enough warm clothing. So he handed me the military sweater. I put it on, and we did the work, and I was warm as toast in it.
Back in the warm farmhouse, I took the sweater off, and handed it to him, thanking him for the loan of his sweater. “Hell, you can keep it,” he said. “I haven’t worn it since maybe 1982 or so; maybe you’ll use it more than me.” So he gave me his sweater. I’ve worn it just about every winter since. It is surprisingly warm (if a bit heavy), and out here in Alberta, it has come in very handy on many cold winter days and nights.
So I’ve been using my military sweater since about 1995, but it has been used since sometime in the late-1970s/early 1980s.
Either…
One of my plain gray sweatshirts.
A mismatched dark sock. There are times where I don’t care if the socks don’t match, so I pick a couple that are close enough. At these times nobody is around or not close enough to notice socks.
A purple shirt my sister bought for me when I lost my luggage when visiting . The shirt isn’t in my regular rotation but I wear it from time to time.
Kind of the flip side of the OP, but what is you oldest “new” item of clothing? Other than socks and underwear.
A couple of years ago I bought some new work pants/shirts to replace the ones that were aging. And I regularly replace jeans and casual shirts that I wear all the time. But I’m often surprised when I realize that - say - my “new” flannel is 10+ years old.
My standard attire is jeans and river driver shirts in cool weather, and golf shirts and shorts in warmer. Those get replaced as needed. But any thing that is “fancier” or worn only for social or special occasions, probably averages at least 8 yrs old.
I have a couple of sleep shirts that I bought around 1985, I think. They’ve been relegated to “backups” because they’re so stretched out and oversized, but when my preferred sleep shirts are all in the wash, I’ll pull out one of the oldies.
I do own an older outfit - my dress blues from boot camp - 1973 - but no way I can fit into them. The hat still fits, tho!!
I forgot about those! I used to have a huge pile of 'em, but I finally tossed them about 10 years ago. Some of them were pretty cool designs (especially the JACL ones for the Samurai Run), but most of them were really worn and stained, and I couldn’t justify the space they were taking up.
I bought a blue winter coat with lovely deep pockets at a thrift store around 1991 or 1992 (not exactly sure when I got it but I remember wearing it to my brother’s funeral in 1994). I used to wear it all the time but now wear it mainly for things like shoveling snow and walking to the local grocery store. The knit cuffs are starting to fray but it shows very few other signs of wear.
It cost $3.95 - I think I got my money’s worth out of it, and it was already used when I bought it.