When You Were A Kid, What Did You Think Of Hand-Me-Downs

In My Humble Opinion
21

All my female cousins and older sister were many years older than I. That didn’t stop our parents from saving everything for me.

All I remember of the hand-me-downs was a pair of corduroy bell bottoms with horses printed on them. I wore these to school in 1985 when I was in first grade. It’s obviously scarred me terribly and did nothing to ratchet up my popularity.

For this pair of pants alone, I hated hand-me-downs. But I’m still going to do it to my kids. It’s good for them to get a taste of humility.

22

I’m the oldest of two sisters.

I didn’t always feel ready to give up my stuff when my mom thought it was time to hand it down to my sister. My sister is now dealing with this issue with her kids, and says she understands it better now than she did when we were kids.

I felt sorry for her, having to wear hand-me-down clothes, and was glad there was no one to hand down clothes for me.

23

Hated them.
I was the oldest, but they came from “friend of the family” that I didn’t like and a cousin that I didn’t like, both of whom wore clothes I didn’t like.

I remember thinking that they smelled funny. (I doubt they actually did, but I was convinced that they did). And I thought they were ugly, ugly clothes, and I was incredibly self-concious about having to wear them. Same with thrift shop stuff.

I like the idea of vintage/thrift/used clothes shopping. But I hate the reality of it.

24

My brothers are 13 and 15 years older than me and the only close relatives my age were female. Never got hand me downs. My mom did give my old clothes to one of our neighbors (they had six children).

25

For me it happened only with school uniforms. I always got my older brother’s suits, blazers etc. I didn’t like it very much, but my parents weren’t going to shell out for new uniforms for me when his were still in good condition, so there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

26

Loved them.

I loved getting my cousin’s hand-me-downs, she was the Cool Girl in high school when I was in middle school. These were the most fashion-forward clothes I owned.

We had a friend of the family who would pass along her son’s clothes to my brother, but he didn’t really have the same taste or style. This other kid was the crazy bad boy that all the girls chased after, so I would dig through my brother’s hand-me-down bag and claim the kid’s old jean jackets, concert t-shirts, whatever was cool and then enjoy being the envy of all the girls in 8th grade.

27

It probably molded me into the, uh, quirky styled person I am today. I loved hand-me-downs. We were absolutely dirt poor and they were from cousins and friends of the family, and let me tell you, I rocked those bright orange thick cord pants. Hmm.

I’ve always regarded getting dressed as a chance to play dress-up (hated 12 years of school uniform) and I still do, and bags of eclectic, ridiculous hand-me-downs gave me a wardrobe with a lot of truly odd and wonderful options.

28

I wanted to wear hand-me-downs but I wasn’t allowed. My mom grew up dirt poor and never had new clothes so she didn’t want me to have to wear used clothes. I had two older cousins who were pretty cool and had cool clothes which would get passed around in a box to the younger cousins, but it was pretty rare that I was allowed to take anything.

Now because I always had fancy, pretty new clothes, I don’t know how it feels to have hand-me-downs so if I have kids, I’ll probably happily accept them, then my kids will hate them and so on and so on.

29

I had three older sisters, so I had lots of hand-me-downs. There were a few things that I couldn’t WAIT until I was old enough to wear, like the red velveteen dress with the sweetheart neckline and the bow in back that my mom made one of my sisters.

30

Middle child with one older sister and one younger brother. I was okay with them up until middle school, where hand-me-downs were considered very, very uncool. They were the reason I rarely shopped in middle and high school, though I did also get some new stuff. It didn’t necessarily help that my sister was built differently than I was. I remember wearing her bras and shirts, which were far too big for me (she’s curvier than me), but all the same I’d be thinking “wow, I’m so mature…I’m wearing a BRA!” I was a pretty awkward kid.

The hand-me-downs were also the reason I had a less-than-perfect understanding of how things were supposed to fit. I thought baggy, too-large clothing actually looked GOOD on me. Then I started buying things in smaller sizes and, lo and behold, I had some manner of fashion sense!

31

I’m the oldest, but I’m another one who’d occassionally get some from family friends. I was able to pick and choose which ones I liked and which ones I didn’t – so I loved it. (And it helps that I LOVE clothes).

My sister got some of my stuff, in addition to new clothes. (Mostly my dressy stuff) I don’t know if it bothered her or not.

MOST of my hand-me-downs, however, were “dress-up-clothes”. I loved to play dress-up, and most of my relatives knew, so I was always getting old castoffs: old nightgowns, bridesmaids dresses, out-of-style evening gowns, semi-dressy-dresses, old shoes, hats, shawls, scarves, jewelry, etc. I had a HUGE trunks’ worth. I think I even had an old fur that was once part of a coat, that had been removed.

32

I wore hand-me-downs from the neighbor girls until I was 8. I remember going to the store with my aunt to buy clothes for the first time “for real.” I think it was because we were going on our first summer vacation - as we finally had some money- and also because I was a big girl and I outgrew what the neighbor girls had.

Last Christmas I was at said neighbor’s house and happened to be looking through their late 70’s photo albums (bro and I were born in 77 and 79). I kid you not - every single photo in that album featured the neighbor kids wearing clothes that my brother and I would eventually inherit and have our pictures taken in. I’m not talking dress-up clothes either - everyday clothes too. It was surreal!

33

Clothes are clothes. Unless it’s uncomfortable or it says “F*** Me–I’m a Party Girl” on the front, I don’t care.

34

Hand me downs suck. I got clothes from dad.

35

I loved them, and I still do! When I was really young (pre-kindergarten, probably?) one of my cousins (all big boys) grew out of a pair of camo pants. I felt like such a BAMF in them. Whenever the camo pants went on, it would be a day of adventure.

As I got older, I started getting more hand-me-downs from my mom and her two younger sisters. They were all hippies in the 1970s and I still love the styles of that era. There’s also her older sister, who as a young woman was the fashionable, chic New Yorker sister, and while most of her hand-me-downs are outdated and/or not made for a girl of my build, every once in a while she’ll give me something fantastic.

36

Got them, hated them.

For one thing, I got some from my cousin, who was younger than me, but smaller. So they looked like little-kid stuff.

Some other stuff came from my mother’s friends daughters. At the time I was in junior high, this friend’s daughter was in her first year of teaching. Needless to say, those clothes were out of fashion. Like, ten years out of fashion. And they didn’t fit.

My mother had another friend who had no kids but who was a very trim, very fashionable woman. She contributed a couple of dresses. Problem was, these clothes were way too old for me–they were stylish, but not junior-high stylish. But at least they fit.

Oddly enough, things that I bought at the thrift store were fine. They didn’t look any better than the clothes I hated, nor did they fit better, and there are pictures to prove it, but at least I had picked them. Never mind that some of them were older than me.

37

I never had many hand-me-downs. I have three girl cousins who are younger than me, though, and it’s funny to flip through family albums and see the same outfit re-appearing as the years wear on.

My cousins liked my clothes, FWIW. They used to stake claims on certain articles they especially coveted.

38

I was the oldest girl and a fatty to boot.

The only hand -me- downs I got were from my male cousin, who was a fatty too, for play clothes and my much older female cousin (another chubby) whose clothes all came from Sears. But either were better than the outfits Mom foisted upon me when she took it in her head to sew. :eek: Those tended to be of the “looks like the seat cover of a sports car fabric” ugly as homemade sin variety.

The one I really felt sorry for was my baby sister. At least twice a year (Xmas and Easter), Mom would decide that all four of us girls needed sister dresses. Poor baby sis would wind up wearing the same dress in different sizes for years on end.

39

My sister is eight years older than I am, and our gender difference obviously precluded hand-me-downs.

I did get a used WEP jacket from a pilot at NAS Miramar (he flew GA aircraft at the FBO where my mom worked). Loved it. Still have it.

As for in-family hand-me-downs, my mom gave me her non-running 1966 MGB roadster when I was in high school.

40

On my mother’s side of the family, there were eight grandchildren in eight years - 2 boys and 6 girls - and I was right in the middle of that bunch, so there were lots of hand-me-downs in my closet and lots that were passed down from me. There were also a good handful of once-removed and second cousins from whom I inherited clothes, Barbie dolls, books, etc. The whole family is frugal, so we recycled long before it was cool!

That said, I don’t really recall having any positive or negative feelings about wearing those clothes: It was the seventies, so whatever we wore was probably gonna be ugly, whether it was new or used! (Seriously, one of the few new things I remember owning was a dress chosen for me by my grandfather. I still have it, for purely sentimental reasons, and still marvel at how insanely UGLY it is - purple and yellow stripes with white flowers, in a fabric never imagined by Mother Nature. Of course, when I was four, I loved it for its pure garishness!)

That said, though, some of my favorite items ever could be considered hand-me-downs. Like most younger sisters, I “liberated” a lot of clothing from my big brother. To this day, my favorite blue jeans are a pair that he wore in high school, no later than his sophomore year (I can pinpoint the year because after that, he sprouted up from a 34 inch inseam to a 36".) I still wear those Levi’s, and have been told that they do great things for my rear view. Thus, they get laundered with the same care as silk blouses and bras - there’s no way to replace them, and they are now a quarter-century old, but they still make my ass look fabulous! My favorite sweatshirt and leather jacket were also “borrowed” from my older brother’s closet.

The best-ever “hand-me-down,” though, was a dress that had been my mother’s oldest sister’s. My grandmother is a professional tailor, and she had sewn this dress for one of my aunt’s piano recitals in the early 1960s. Pewter-colored silk shantung, 3/4 sleeve, simple fitted bodice with a wide scoop neck, full skirt. Very Dior. For years, that dress hung in the sewing room closet at Grandmother’s house, and I lusted after it madly. Finally, it became clear that I was the only one of the granddaughters who had the right figure for it - happy, happy day! The first time I wore it was to a holiday reception at the President’s house at my university, and received enough compliments to absolutely turn my head. And the most recent time I wore it was a couple of years ago, to a military ball - similar level of compliments, twenty years after I first wore it, and almost fifty years after it was first made.