I was just thinking about this yesterday night, as I was doing about eight loads of wash. (Procrastination, I know.)
I have a sweatshirt that I purchased during my sophomore year in high school (1982), with my high school seal on it. It’s still in good condition, it still fits, and I still wear it on a regular basis. It’s about 21 years old. I still have my old high school jacket, purchased during the first semester of my freshman year (1981), but I don’t wear it anymore. Other than that, I still have a bunch of t-shirts from the late 1980s and early 1990s.
So, Dopers, what’s the article of clothing that has been in your possession the longest, which you still wear on a regular basis?
I just threw out a sweater that my mom remembers knitting for my dad when she was pregnant with me. Wore it up until last year, so that makes it over 30.
But the older article is a jacket that my dad found in an antique store. He wanted the hunting license sewn on it (dated 1948) but the dealer considered them a package deal. My dad took off the license and gave the jacket to me. It’s pretty cool–completely reversable, canvas on one side, red wool on the other. There is a rust-colored stain on the canvas side which I assume isthe blood of a deer or pheasant or something.
I still wear my 1979 Kentucky Fried Chicken Bluegrass Festival t-shirt. It is thread-bare, but I feel as frisky as I did then when I wear it. Louisville, KY. Wozzer, could I drink some beer back then!
I have a coat that goes back to at least 1969, maybe earlier. It is my “grunge coat” for working on the car in winter, etc. So grease stained and all that. Recently I fixed some holes, the zipper and even dyed it to hide the stains. Good for another 30+ years?
I have a Hornets sweatshirt that my parents bought me in primary school. I think it was Grade 5, so that would be about 9 years ago. I don’t really wear it out often, unless I’m going for a sloppy look.
I regularly wear clothes that my mother wore when she was my age, and she’s thirty years older than I. I also have a coat that used to be my grandmother’s, which I guess to be about fifty years old. It’s strange realizing you’re wearing something that’s older than you are.
As for things that have actually been in my possession the longest, well, I’m only twenty-two, so it’s highly unlikely that anything I got over about seven or eight years ago would fit me now.
The prize of my collection, though, is a watch that’s over thirty years old – a classic wideband sixties watch that my mother gave me – complete with test answers still scrawled on the band in green pen.
I have a pair of shoes that I used to wear to school when I was 13. Still wear 'em sometimes. I’m 27 now. That’s the benefit of having lots of shoes - you spread out the wear so they last longer. I’ve gone up a few dress sizes since my teens, so I don’t regularly wear many items of clothing that are more than 4 years old.
I am quite into vintage clothes, so the oldest is up in the air. I have the dress I’m wearing here, which is probably mid fifties. I have an army jacket that I bought for $5, and though it has all the buttons removed, my father tells me it’s probably Korean War era. Lots of clothes from the 60s: shirts, dresses. Oooh, there’s my vintage bowling shirt I bought in Venice Beach that has the name “Moreen” [spelled that way] stiched over the cigarette pocket, and “Norka Mould and the Machine” on the back. I tend to get comments on that one. But my favorites are the family stuff. My mom gave me her pair of Osh Kosh Bygosh adult sized overalls, which I’m guessing date from the late seventies (I have a picture of her wearing them, holding me. I’m about 2 at the time, so from at least '82). I wore them out. The denim just fell apart. I then have this neato varigated green cardigan that I wear all the time. But my ultimate favorite belonged to my grandfather. It’s a West Point sweater, black with yellow and beige piping. We don’t know how or why he bought it; the man was never in the service, much less West Point. But it’s warm and cuddly and neato looking. I’m thinking mid-50s, judging from the label. I love vintage stuff. It’s like being in costume whenever I wear one, but a tad bit more socially acceptable.
The oldest item I have that I bought, myself, new: my L.L.Bean Blucher moccasins. They’ve worn like iron and they’re almost as comfortable as bare feet.
When I was in about 6th grade, I got a long, black jacket from my older sister–it was originally from a swim team, but I think of it as kind of a fisherman’s coat…it’s black on the outside, red feaux-fur on the inside, with a hood. the material on the outside is some kind of plastic, it’s waterproof, but breathable (Reminds me of vinyl, not sure what it is)
I’m gonna be 20 very soon, and I still wear that jacket every day. It’s like a security blanket, of sorts…I look at that coat, and think of it as purely mine. I think I’m gonna put it on right now…
I like to sleep in the tye dyed shirt my mom made me when I was about seven. It hung below my knees then, now it barely reaches my waist.
I just got married in the wedding dress my aunt wore in 1953. Not sure if that counts since I’ll never wear it again, but I’m saving it for my twelve-year-old cousin.
I have a London Fog coat that I got at a thrift store for $15 about 8 years ago. One day felt something in the lining and after various unsewings found a dry cleaning slip from February 1947! which is only 22 years before I was born. Still wear it occasionally, but not if it’s windy and cold, 'cause the lining is pretty much done.
Also have a pair of Carolina Blue Nike hi-tops that I got back in December 1994 that I still regularly wear.
I have a few shirts I got about eight years ago, that i still wear. Oldest iten of clothing I have that’s wearable? Cream silk 1908 wedding dress. At least, it will be wearable if I ever get an Edwardian corset. Wearable without corset- black lace Twenties dress. I’m a vintage clothes person too.
Mercy, I don’t know. Hm. If I still have that _mcl-tartan shirt (i.e. didn’t give it back to Dad), that was woven by my late grandmother and is pretty old.
