There is something to be said about being in a charity shop and stumbling across a treasure chest full of beautiful remnants of the 90’s – a collection of clothes, so personal and identifiable, you can just tell that they used to co-exist together in one singular wardrobe. I don’t know why, but I find it even more exciting than buying brand new clothes these days. Something about it feels so much more personal and intimate, and (whilst the process isn’t at all luxurious) you feel rewarded for trawling through the racks of donated items. 

The excitement that I feel when stumbling across these items leads me to question why they were ever passed on in the first place. Yet, it must be said that the cathartic act of replacing and redoing our wardrobes is an entirely emotional affair. The physical action of stripping our wardrobe clean before carefully contemplating which items are worthy of a coat hanger to match a newly curated version of ourselves, seems to scratch a very particular part of our brains. 

The cleansing process doesn’t just get rid of old clothes, but also removes any remnants of the old us which we may no longer identify with anymore. The outfits we wear become symbols of who we are within that time, and when we feel like they no longer represent us anymore, comes the time when we must pass them on. This act of donating to a charity shop or selling them on therefore gives clothes an immediate rebirth; passing on items to a stranger enables them to become a beloved part of someone else’s outfit. 

But with this, you pass on more than just a piece of material.  

I don’t mean to sound superficial, but I notice what people wear more than anything. In fact, I tie a memory of a specific time to the outfits everyone sported on that day or night.

‘Oh yes, that night out in freshers… the one where you were wearing those cowboy boots? Yes, now I remember exactly.’ 

Clothes mark key life moments. There’s a reason brides feel immense pressure when choosing their dress for the big day; there’s a reason our parents keep our first shoes in a box in the attic somewhere. But that choice to pass on an item symbolises a personal choice that we have made to move on from the memories which that particular item may hold, whether they’re good or they’re bad. 

However, I would argue that it is the mundane pieces within our wardrobe that we choose to wear most frequently which are the ones which hold more value. The everyday. The clothes we reach for when we need comfort. This is why I find comfort in choosing and paying for an item second-hand, as I know it was something that someone else once chose for themselves too, once upon a time. From an anthropological perspective, it highlights the knowledge that we’re not all that different. Even though these clothes may not serve any use to their previous owner anymore, they now look at ease within my wardrobe, comfortably carrying the marks of their past life. The life that those clothes had becomes someone else’s. 

But this trend of giving clothes a second life simply works because trends return cyclically. In 2014, did anyone ever think we would be replacing our beloved Joni jeans, with our dads jeans from the 90s and lying to ourselves that they fit, by tying a shoelace around our waists? No… but we found ourselves scouring for clothes that don’t fit as society insists they should. An ever-growing positive trend has emerged of ignoring the assigned sizes of clothes. It defies the toxic mindset, that had us buying smaller clothes as inspiration for losing weight. Not needing the label to read ‘our size’ for us to purchase them, and instead making the clothes fit for us, and not the other way around. This only helps more when shopping second hand, as a) you cannot guarantee your size being available and b) a size 10 in 2022, is not the same as a size 10 in 1999. But once again, this process is anything but emotionless, as we continue to listen to what makes us and our bodies feel comfortable. 

Bristol as a city is comfortable in embracing sustainability, and this is evidenced through its students wardrobes. They shop eclectically, environmentally consciously and resourcefully. This process of rebirthing clothes from one wardrobe to another, looks to prevent the growth of mass fabric pollution that resides in landfills globally. And embracing second hand stores gives students the perfect opportunity to curate their own sense of style for less. 

And yet aside from all this, there’s an undeniable beauty in finding a collection of clothes that clearly belonged to another owner. This beauty I refer to is that of knowing the piece once belonged to one wardrobe: carrying their memories for a fragment of their life. Someone’s old treasures looking to be welcomed into a new wardrobe. What was once theirs becomes ours.