Breakfast first….
Okay.
I’m wearing something old right now, a man’s shirt, with the sleeves rolled up below the elbow, i roll them down when I put it in the washer, so it will match the rest of it, once blue, now a lovely faded tired white. It buttons on the women’s side so i guess it’s not a man’s shirt. iI’s big, though, and it goes over other clothes, day or night, when i need an extra layer to be warm. I am reminded of my teenage years when I wore my first pair of jeans with a man’s shirt over them not tucked in. Very hip. That must be the reason I bought it, though I don’’t remember buying it.
My husband bought my next old item of clothing, a maternity cardigan to be worn over the big skirt and tunic. That was the style then, before empire line dresses and chemises and onesies for grown-ups. Depends on how old you are, if you recognize what I’m writing about..
I wore that cardigan long after my pregnant days were over. It was roomy, comfortable and washable, ideal for a writer to work in. I know the provenance of two more old things I still wear. One is a Japanese fisherman’s shirt I bought in the gift store in the then new Guthrie Museum in Minneapolis. We were living in Winnipeg and with the (not yet Royal) Manitoba Theatre Centre before we moved to Stratford. Straiight-cut, like a blazer, but shorter, with short sleeves and turned up cuffs in the originali dark blue trim with small white polka dots, the only clue you had to the original coluor, the shirt is the ideal cover for a shift dress worn in the summer heat when someone turns on the air-conditioning.
I love it.
I do not love, but I am grateful to a dress that came instant old. It knew before I did that I would have it for years. A grey denim button-frront sihrt dress with a self-tie belt and a collar that welcomes a light colourful scarf or a dickey (does anyone remember what a dickey is?), it has become my go-to dress when I have to be business-like in a city in the late summer or early spring. I wore it to afternoon tea at Raffles in Singapore at the beginning of a long southern hemisphere cruise. I packed it in my carry-on bag so I’d have it to wear before my shipped luggage arrrived.
I don’t like the dress, useful as it is. I feel like a prison warden in it. I always get compliments on it, and I have trouble not to make a face. Only fourteen years old now, it’s going to be with me forever.