Wardrobe Stories: Lauren Bravo
Once upon a time, clothes hung around for longer. Longer than a season, or an Instagram post, or the seven wears which is reportedly average these days. Long enough that they’d really seen things, man.
If those clothes could speak, they’re the ones I’d want to be sat next to at a party. The ol’ faithfuls. The clothes that spark Proustian associations, and better memories than “I was hungover and confused in a shopping centre” or “I needed a basic black top for a thing.” The clothes a stranger can’t compliment without accidentally signing up for a 10-minute monologue on when you bought it and where you found it and how much you love it and all the adventures the two of you have been on together, and did you mention it also has pockets? Those clothes.
I tend to think of them as the nodding elder statesmen of our wardrobes. Not as energetic or novel as the youngsters, perhaps, but they have the best stories to tell. Whether they’re secondhand pieces with hypothetical histories you can dream up yourself (“Just getting a sense this was worn to a warehouse rave by a minor European royal, y’know?”), family hand-me-downs or just things you’ve had in your own wardrobe for years.
We could say it’s like wine getting better with age – or that if clothes were cheese, the older ones would be complex, crumbly, flavourful Stiltons, while this season’s fast fashion would be industrial Kraft slices that taste of wax. Although perhaps comparing vintage to blue cheese isn’t a savvy PR move. The stigma of smells still abounds.
“I find love is a greater guarantee of longevity”
Anyway. One of the veteran items I’ve been wearing this month is a cape. A tweed cape, in a heathery shade of blueish purple with a gold chain fastener at the neck. I’ve had it since 2009, which I like to think is proof that not only the ‘classic’ (read: dull) pieces can earn a place in our wardrobes for the long haul. I love it, and personally I find love is a greater guarantee of longevity than ‘timeless tailoring’ or a hefty price tag.
A decade of dressing: Lauren wearing her vintage cape in Montreal, 2010.
I bought the cape from a vintage stall off Brick Lane, along with a framed illustrated map of a part of France I’ve never been to (should the rule that if you can’t sing at least three hits by the band you probably shouldn’t be wearing their t-shirt extend to hipster cartography too?) and which still hangs on my bedroom wall today, three flat moves later. Funny how keeping pictures for 11 years isn’t such a big deal as keeping clothes.
I love the cape because it reminds me of wearing it in Montreal, on a trip to visit my friend Jo in 2010. There are photos of me in the cape, drunk on maple syrup and delighted to have survived my first ever long-haul flight without dying or going deaf in both ears (just one). Quebec in late October is not strictly a cape-friendly climate, but I’d come prepared with thermals and knitwear to layer up underneath. The cape was part of my holiday vision and damnit, I was committed.
The cape also reminds me of early days with my boyfriend, who I’d started dating about a month before the trip. When my plane landed back at Heathrow at 9am, he took the day off work and came to meet me at the airport, complete with a little sign with my name on it. Harry of When Harry Met Sally was right, the airport thing never happened again (do you know how far away airports are?) – but even now, wearing it or just catching a flash of mauve tweed on my clothes rail whisks me back a whole decade. Suddenly I’m 22 again, heavily jet-lagged and giddy with the headrush of new love.
“there’s no garment in the world that doesn’t have a story”
It’s not only the wardrobe veterans that hold emotional power, of course. There are clothes I’ve only had for a few months that already have tales to tell. The Laura Ashley dress I hunted down on Depop and wore for my first meal out post-lockdown, looking like an overexcited 80s bridesmaid. The silk scarf that was once my Granny’s, and which has made me feel closer to her for the six months I’ve not been allowed to visit. The tie-dye t-shirt in which I ran my first ever 10km, which says ‘Sustainability is sexy’ across it and doesn’t mind being soaked thrice-weekly in sweat. The lilac cropped cardigan that I wore on a government-mandated walk one Sunday back in May, returning an hour later with an engagement ring on one hand and a bag of groceries in the other.
There are clothes that come with their own stories already tied up in the seams, because we know exactly where they were made, and what with, and who by. When you think about it this way, there’s no garment in the world that doesn’t have a story – it’s just that most brands are a closed book. They’d prefer we didn’t know.
But it’s never too late to honour those stories and give clothes more meaning. Even the flimsiest impulse purchase can become a long-serving stalwart if we treat it right, wear it imaginatively, alter it, lend it or swap it into the right person’s wardrobe. The way I see it, it’s a numbers game. The more you rack up the wears, the more chance you have of forging an emotional connection; the more chance you have of turning that anonymous garm into the kind of item that has you regaling strangers in pub toilets with its origin story, misty-eyed, while The Way We Were somehow plays from an invisible speaker.
In this new monthly series for Nuw, I’m going to be sharing some of those stories. I’m going to be delving into other people’s wardrobes with all the eagerness of a Narnia-bound child and the nosiness of a neighbourhood Facebook page. Alongside ‘where did you buy it?’ and ‘...um, can I borrow?’, I’ll be asking some of our favourite creators, artists, activists and Nuw community members about the clothes with the most interesting histories, the clothes that spark romance or regret, the clothes that they’re proudest of snagging and the clothes that make them feel things (besides warm).
Sharing those stories will be fun, but there’s an ulterior motive too. Because through swapping tales of fashion triumph – and sometimes disaster – I think we invest more in our clothes and remind ourselves that their value goes far beyond the label. And that’s always a cause worth championing. Just call me a caped crusader, I guess.
