Loose Threads
Illustration by Meghan Zhang
I remember the first time I bought myself a piece of clothing. When I was a kid I didn’t put much stock into fashion, I would wear what my parents bought, or what was handed down to me. I had never even thought of fashion as a way to express myself. At some point in highschool, dressed in my loose t-shirts and dark wash stretch jeans I stumbled, blindly, onto something more, a new way to express myself, a new art. I had, at some point, decided that I wanted to dress like a pilot, and so I started visiting the retailers in my small town in search of a bomber jacket. I visited every single store and I left each one unsatisfied. Not only was there no jacket to be found, there was not a single article of clothing that interested me. Then, on a whim, I visited the small salvation army on main street, and it was there, buried on a rack that I found it. A brown suede leather jacket, one that I still wear to this day, one that I adore, and the one that started my relationship with my clothes.
Every single article of clothing in my closet has a story, every stain is a mark of ink in a greater tale, and every stitch is a picture worth a thousand words as to who I am. Every piece is a page and bound together as they are by clothes hangers, they write the great story of my life. I wrote this article as an ode to these pieces of clothing, the materials and cuts by which I can identify myself by, for even as I grow and change, these garments have stayed, on my back, and on my shoulders through thick and through thin.
The first verse of this ode is dedicated to the stitches, cuts, rips, and tears. I enjoy the outdoors, I love hiking, camping, scrambling, and climbing. I love it so much that I get paid to do it. This love has taken me through tundra, tablelands, swamp, and snow, and in my travels there have been many times when steel, sticks, or stones have prevailed against the fabric on my body and pierced the soft skin underneath. It is in these moments that I exchange with the world, a piece of myself. I leave behind a loose thread, a piece of fabric that will inevitably be reworked by the birds and mice into their nests, and in return I gain a stitch, a story about who I am and where I have been. Written into the shoulder of a grey shirt there is a bramble on the Manitoba border, on the right leg of blue work pants there is a spring creek in Marathon, a tear in the sole of my boot tells the story of a rock on an unnamed lake in Nunavut, and on the chest of a black jersey there is a crashed mountain bike on the Niagara Escarpment. Every painstaking stitch I’ve sewn and every cut I’ve bandaged represents the stroke of a pen, slowly writing the story of who I am in blood and cotton.
The second verse is dedicated to the collars, ties, dress shoes, and cufflinks, all the things I had hoped to never be dressed in. The first suit I ever bought was a cheap one. I had bought it for prom, it was dark grey and had a vaguely Italian sounding name. I bought a white dress shirt, a green tie, and black shoes to compliment it. At the time I saw it as a wasteful purchase as I knew that I would never wear a suit again. I knew, at the time, that I would never become a suit, I would never match my socks to my pants and that I would never fret over the colour of my necktie. I know now how little I knew then. I wore that suit countless times, I have fretted over the colour of my tie and my socks have never clashed with my pants. I don’t wear it often but every time I do I feel uncomfortable, the shoes leave blisters on my heels, the shoulders leave room to be desired, and the tie kisses my neck too tightly. When I’m in a suit I feel like a snake waiting to shed its skin, to disregard the constrictive garments and slither towards my freedom. It scares me though, to see how much I’ve already come to tolerate my suits, I fear that someday I may finally don it and find comfort. To find that the shoulders sit comfortably and that the shoes no longer blister my heels. I wish I could burn my suits, to burn away this fear and cleanse my mind but I can’t. I need them, there are times in my life that I need to don the snakeskin, but more importantly, they represent my fears, and as much as I wish I could disregard my fear, but it is as much a part of me as my hopes are, and who would I be to erase that part of my story.
The final verse is dedicated to the knitwear, to the waffles, the jacquards, the jerseys, and the ribs. One of the most distinct pieces of my wardrobe are my sweaters, they are a foundational part of most of my outfits for as long as the weather permits their wear. In my experience it is hard to find good sweaters, most are cheap, made of polyester or other synthetic materials. It is rare to find real, good, well made, wool sweaters. When made properly they are one of the best and most versatile articles of clothing one can possess, and it is because of this that I hold mine jealously. Turtlenecks are the only piece of clothing I have never been able to find, I have never stumbled across a turtleneck that I liked, except for one. It was a green and black turtleneck, it was a beautiful jersey knit, the neck sat comfortably on my body, it was gorgeous, and I gave it away. Paradoxically, for something so full of love, sweaters carry a curse. Knitters carry the belief that if you make a sweater for your significant other the relationship will be doomed to fail when the sweater is completed. Whether these threads end up packed away and forgotten in cardboard boxes, or donated so that someone else may enjoy them, they represent the lost threads of my life. They are the what could have beens, the places where maybe happiness was just a few stitches away, where maybe if the sweater was made a bit differently it would have been loved, and where maybe, it could have been enough…
I look at the sweaters I have, the stitches that adorn my work clothes, I look at the slithering neck ties and serpentine suits and I see the story of who I am, of who I have been. Then I look beside them and see the empty space, the empty clothes hangers waiting to tell the story of who I will be. They will speak of the places I have been, the scars I have accrued, the people I have met in cafes and bars, and the sweaters that will finally bring happiness instead of heartbreak.
We are our clothes, more than we know. They tell our stories, when the wind whistles through the holes, and the wind makes the loose fabric flap, they whisper to the world who we are, who we have been, and who we will be. The wind will carry their tales of hardship, love, and care to the clouds who will in turn tell the story to the fields and pastures. It is here that these stories will work their way into the cotton and wool, the fibres that will eventually be woven into blank pages to tell new stories.
These are the stories of my clothes, this is what they mean to me. Take a look into your closet, look at it closely and read your own story. Divine your past from spaghetti stains and old lipstick marks. Uncover the fossilized remains of once followed fashion trends and ponder the future of your wardrobe. Share these stories, swap them with the garments you share with the ones you love. Allow your clothes to introduce you, to tell your story to all those you meet. In return treat them well, do well to not forget them because behind those closet doors lays not only your friends, but the keepers of a piece of your history, a piece of your soul.
