Do you own a clothing item with a strange history?

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shining_light
shining_light Posts: 384 Member
in Chit-Chat
My clothing item with a weird history: My indoor workout shoes, a pair of Sketchers shoes, were purchased from a homeless man on the street in Vancouver for $3. There's a whole story behind why the hell I was on the streets in Vancouver and a lot of stories from that week of my life, but those shoes are definitely a good physical reminder of the time I spent there. So, yeah. I've had people compliment me on my shoes, and that's exactly what I tell them: "Thanks. I bought them off a homeless guy in Vancouver." Yep.

Alright, what's your story?
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Replies

  • dbmata
    dbmata Posts: 12,951 Member
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    I have a Hitler Youth medal.

    Strange story to it for sure, and it's not something I bought.
  • ModernNerd
    ModernNerd Posts: 336 Member
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    Way way back in the 80s, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, my uncle found two matching grey hoodies in a dumpster. For reasons far beyond my comprehension, he thought they would make a nice gift to my mom. Now her and I wear our matching dumpster hoodies around the house all the time.
  • theopenforum
    theopenforum Posts: 280 Member
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    I own a shirt that I wore in my videos when I was bigger. its 4xl and its strange cause I still have it and haven't doused it in gasoline and set it on fire yet lol. I don't know i guess I want to remember who I am and where I came from, to give me stability as I strive to become what I want to be. Oh and also, I think I look pretty good in purple =D Yep that's definitely it, just ignore the soft stuff above lol

    Cheers,

    Tof
  • MizTerry
    MizTerry Posts: 3,763 Member
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    I still have my shirt for my unit in boot camp, K046. Ugly as heck, but I still have it for sentimental reasons.
  • headofphat
    headofphat Posts: 1,599 Member
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    I have a Lithuanian basketball team t-shirt from the 96 Olympics in Atlanta. They were sponsored by the Grateful Dead so it's tye dye. I'm not a hippie in any sense of the word but i thought it was cool that The Grateful Dead bankrolled them.
  • flywithgeorge
    flywithgeorge Posts: 62 Member
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    I've been a private pilot for 13 years. When I first started flying, I used to fly a bunch of my friends around to build hours. They pooled their money and bought me a really nice flight jacket. I love that jacket and wore it for years but unfortunately its a 3X and I now wear a medium... just can't force myself to get rid of it.
  • aakaakaak
    aakaakaak Posts: 1,240 Member
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    I have a shirt from a high school kid that I used to share a locker with. He was a boxer and died while doing some poorly designed neck exercises. I asked about the shirt but nobody wanted it back. So 20 years later I still have a nike air Jordan shirt from a dead guy.

    I have a flintstone shirt that a friend of mine's mother gave me. This is also around a 20 year old shirt. The car I drove at the time was extremely rusted out and the linkage ended up breaking. Instead of getting a new part for it I used to turn the engine off and have everyone open their door and push the car backwards with their outer foot, singing the flintstones song. One day a mom saw us doing this and ran out of the house carrying this flintstones shirt for me.
  • digitalbill
    digitalbill Posts: 1,410 Member
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    I have a brown leather jacket that my Grandfather used to wear when he raced motorcycles back in the 20's and 30's. Back then they simply painted the number on the back so, I have this old brown leather jacket with faded white "14" painted on it.
    It was handed down to my Dad who handed it down to me.
    It doesn't fit me anymore (My grandfather was not a big guy) so hopfully in a few years I will be able to hand it down to my Son.
  • Derf_Smeggle
    Derf_Smeggle Posts: 611 Member
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    I still have a black leather jacket I wore in my late teens and early 20's. Paid $125.00 for it new. Stuck $150.00 worth of buttons into it. The entire front is pin holed and covered to this day. A lot of those buttons were gifts, some were trades, and some were from places I traveled. Most are..*cough*.. adult oriented, rude, or sarcastic.

    I haven't fit into that jacket for 15 years now, but it still hangs in my closet. A reminder of wild, exciting, frightening, hilarious, sad, happy, depressing, and glorious times.
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,742 Member
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    At least 1/2 of my clothing was purchased secondhand, so I'm sure there are stories in my closet - all quite mysterious though ;-)

    Yesterday I wore a bright pink & maroon track jacket that has a bit of a story to it.

    When I was with my ex, he randomly spotted it in a Goodwill store hanging by the furniture, and thought of me because it has a small crown insignia that's similar to my crown tattoo. It said XXL on the label & he called and asked if he should grab it, and I said sure although I wore 2X/3X at the time. It was crazy-small for XXL, and some weird (possibly foreign) brand with no name. It did not even come close to zipping, and didn't look okay unzipped. I kept it in my closet for over a year w/o thinking about it.

    I was thinking of asking my best friend if she wanted it, maybe a year ago, but I was afraid she might be mildly offended as it did say XXL. She wore a L or XL at that time.

    Forgot about it, then dragged it back out recently and it fits great.
  • ScottyNoHotty
    ScottyNoHotty Posts: 1,954 Member
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    I still own a pair of Bugle Boy jeans from 1991.....they are size 34 x 30....these are my goal pants.....the day i can fit back into them , I'm wearing them to work.
  • aakaakaak
    aakaakaak Posts: 1,240 Member
    Options
    At least 1/2 of my clothing was purchased secondhand, so I'm sure there are stories in my closet - all quite mysterious though ;-)

    Yesterday I wore a bright pink & maroon track jacket that has a bit of a story to it.

    When I was with my ex, he randomly spotted it in a Goodwill store hanging by the furniture, and thought of me because it has a small crown insignia that's similar to my crown tattoo. It said XXL on the label & he called and asked if he should grab it, and I said sure although I wore 2X/3X at the time. It was crazy-small for XXL, and some weird (possibly foreign) brand with no name. It did not even come close to zipping, and didn't look okay unzipped. I kept it in my closet for over a year w/o thinking about it.

    I was thinking of asking my best friend if she wanted it, maybe a year ago, but I was afraid she might be mildly offended as it did say XXL. She wore a L or XL at that time.

    Forgot about it, then dragged it back out recently and it fits great.

    Awesome NSV!
  • icimani
    icimani Posts: 1,454 Member
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    Back when my nieces and nephews were kids (~35 yrs ago?) their Mom had them making tie-dye shirts for Christmas. Mine was bright green and very cool, and I wore it a lot. Over the years it faded and we started calling it "snot green", but I still wore it at home. I finally threw it away about 2 yrs ago - it was a size 5x and now I'm down to 2x (sometimes a 1x!) - and it was full of holes and covered in paint. Lots of memories in that shirt!
  • cephlove
    cephlove Posts: 11 Member
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    Years ago, I was scuba diving near Bondi Beach in Sydney Australia, a site I dived semi-frequently while living out there for 6 months. While finning along, something brightly-coloured and waving in the current caught my eye. I swam over, and it turned out to be a towel, half-buried under the sand. I pulled it up, carried it on the rest of the dive with me, and then took it home. That towel's been all over the place with me, and I still use it when I go diving or to the beach.
  • kshiraakshara
    kshiraakshara Posts: 119 Member
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    One summer in college I came home to visit my parents. They had been out of town up until the day I got there, and my younger brother threw a massive party in their absence. A human-sized dent in the wall at the foot of the stairs memorializes it to this day.

    One of my brother's friends and the friend's girlfriend ended up staying the night in the guest room. The girlfriend apparently liked to wear a lot of layers, because when she left the next morning she didn't realize she had left her shirt in between the bed and the wall.

    When we washed the guest room bedding so that I'd have somewhere a little less sexy to sleep, we found the shirt. I liked it so I kept it.

    A few days later the girl asked my brother if he knew where her shirt was. His reply: "My sister took it and I don't think she'll give it back to you. If you talk to my dad about it he could probably convince her, though."

    Needless to say, I still have the shirt.
  • dlionsmane
    dlionsmane Posts: 672 Member
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    I have an original Deer Skin Trading Post suede fringed jacket that was bought for my grandmother by her mother. It was handed down to my mom and she gave it to me. I will give it to my daughter when (and if) she ever settles in one place) - She travels a lot for work and life! Not really a strange history, but a long and meaningful one! :)
  • sillygoosie
    sillygoosie Posts: 1,109 Member
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    At least 1/2 of my clothing was purchased secondhand, so I'm sure there are stories in my closet - all quite mysterious though ;-)

    This. I like to think that all of my clothes have a sordid and colorful past.
  • KANGOOJUMPS
    KANGOOJUMPS Posts: 6,472 Member
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    just kinky lingerie
  • pseudomuffin
    pseudomuffin Posts: 1,058 Member
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    Well, not really strange but I still have a shirt from summer camp (Ondessonk) circa 1998. Their logo at the time was a cross-bearing globe with a bear and an arrow in the center and I was wearing it one day as pajamas and my man gets this look of realization on his face and says "Oh, that's a BEAR!" Yeahhh, what did you think it was? "I thought it was a fat pope!" hahaha! So now it's my fat pope shirt because for about two years he thought that's what the logo was. It's covered in paint splatters and all of the sharpie signatures have washed off over time but I still hang onto it for some reason.
  • pseudomuffin
    pseudomuffin Posts: 1,058 Member
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    just kinky lingerie

    :laugh: Well hey I didn't think about that... If these ballet boots could talk!

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