My Mother's Wardrobe

Hand me

downs

Hand me downs can be timeless pieces of clothing that hold emotional sentiment within them, they can hold memories and unlock past lives we may have not experienced ourselves. Through conversations l’ve had with my mother about her style and the clothes she wore when she was my age - I began to explore and question the relationship we have with our mother’s belongings. In the hopes of delving into a per- sonal investigation through imagry and styling, I asked myself how I inrepret the past and if I can see a part myself within my mother. I was curious to see if I could use hand me down clothing in an attempt to get closer to my mothers style as a teenager a whilst still in the process of defining my own.

TEXT - SADHBH RAINBIRD

MODEL - MINNA FRASER

After discovering images of my mum at 18, I became increasingly interested in the person she was, how she dressed and how she expressed herself as a teenage girl living on a turkey farm in Drogheda, a port town in County Louth on the east coast of Dublin.

I began wanting to reimagine and re interpret this version of my mother that I never met. Comparing teenage life in the 80’s to teenage life now and how dramatically it has changed in many ways. Discovering these capsule collections of clothing that hold stories, memories, and sentiment. There is something special about wearing the exact same dress that my mum wore herself in the 80’s, I automatically feel more connected to her and the experienced she had whilst wearing it.

Taking you back to a time through the thoughts and feelings it evokes. After speaking to friends, I realised that there really is nothing between than opening your mum’s wardrobe and finding a perfectly intact vintage piece ready to be given a new lease of life. A piece of clothing that even over 40 years later, is still perfectly preserved. I realised that hand me down clothing is ethical, heart-warming, and sustainable. Preloved clothing holds memories through each hole or stain that new mass manufactured garments cannot. Pop culture and style inspiration was different then to how it is now, nowadays many of us find our fashion inspiration through social media and targeted ads. When my mum was a teenager, she didn’t have a mobile phone or even access to fashion magazines. She found her inspiration through the music she listened to and the women she looked up to.

‘I shopped at vintage stores in Dublin and markets. My style inspiration was Siouxsie Sioux and Liz Frazer and any girls I saw walking around town and Dublin who had a vintage look’.

Throughout this publication I’ve decided to take the spirit from the old images and frame it in a contemporary way. Styling some of my mothers old pieces of clothing from that time and elevating them, creating a modern version of this past style, using my mum as my main source of inspiration as well as references from the 80s goth movement and DIY culture.

My Mother’s Wardrobe

Here Minna is wearing 3 items of clothing handed down to me by my mother. A 1960’s mesh crochet dress, vintage patterned tights and a studded belt. All of which were worn by my mum in her teenage years.

Conversations with my Mum

SR: Hi mum

M: Hi Honey

SR: So, as you know were going to be talking about the photos I have of you, the black and white ones. Can you remember any specifics about the time these images were taken? With regards to your style, fashion choices?

M: Yeah, it was, 1983 so I was 19. I think you’ve laughed at me for this before, but I was in a sort of cross between goth and hippy phase, so ire ally liked the look of goth, but I wasn’t sort of outrageous or confident enough to go fully goth. Back then it was a real hard-core look, almost as hard core as punk. I was wearin quite structured, vintage stuff mixed with the odd Highstreet piece. A lot of it was vantage second hand, DIY clothes that you had thrown together. We would look for any cool looking girl in town and copy them basically. But also, I found a lot of my fashion and style choices came straight from the music I was listening to at the time. I didn’t have magazines, so music and album covers were my sources of inspiration.

SR: So, music was your form of inspiration from media at the time?

M: Yeah, well anyone musically I really liked and listened to, I usually also liked their style and wanted to embody them. I feel like that’s what we wanted to. create with these photos. My friend wanted them to look like the cover of an album.

SR: I think you’ve already answered my question but following up on that, whose style specifically did you try to emulate at the time?

M: well one of the girls we really liked the look of in town, she honestly used to look like Elizabeth Taylor, she looked like a movie star. So, she took that look and really pushed it and curated it. A lot of these girls were arty, creative, and really expressed their art through their clothes You’d go with your friends up to Dublin and that would be the time that we would just dress the way we wanted to entirely because in Dublin it wasn’t unusual to dress in that way. There was no one we knew around to stare at us or take the mickey. We defiantly didn’t dress for boys, and I kind of notice that with young girls now a lot. We’d wear giant skirts, heavy black coats, generally just big, layered clothes. So, you’d often put all your look in your face, if you wanted to look sexy it would be all about your eye make-up and hair. We all dyed our hair black.

SR: I already know this but what were some of. Your standout style inspirations from your teens? Because I know you guys didn’t have access to vogue, so I just wonder, where in media did you kind of get your inspiration from?

M; Oh no you didn’t buy vogue. You wouldn’t have enough money to buy a copy of vogue each month. The big inspiration for me, which I still use today is dressing like the people whose music you liked. So, I loved Kate Bush, I wanted my hair to be big like hers. The Cocteau twins were my favourite band, I wanted to dress like liz Fraser. I really wanted to be like women who had their own style and who created this strong, experimental look for themselves. We all wanted to be like Siouxsie Sioux because she was a punk, - but she was sexy and feminine.

SR: How did the other women around you dress? Was this notion of not dressing anything like your parents our own verison of a rebellion?

M: The women in my family life, other than my sisters, were all very The women in my family life, other than my sisters, were all very straight forward and soft in the way they dressed so I slowly started dressing less and less like them. It was definetly my own mini rebellion. i was too scared to skip school so instead I dressed like Siouxsie Sioux.

SR: I’m wondering if you every borrowed clothes from your mum? Or how wearing your mums’ old clothes or something she had made for you made you feel? Did they feel special?

M: It really was yeah. She made me a lot of clothes, and although she dressed very differently, she still took a huge interest in what I wore. We’d go into town to buy fabrics and patterns for her to make me something to wear. But it was also about finding clothes and altering them. She’d alter my skirts and tops for me almost every day, which was a special thing. But there were defiantly a few things I wore of my mums that I loved and held onto for years. She had a lot of amazing boots and kitten heels, Finding my mum’s old clothes was like finding treasure for my sisters and I.

SR: How do you feel when I wear your’e clothes?

M: It feels amazing, its an ego thing really. Its similar to how i feel when i hear youlistening to my favoiuroite albums from when i was younger, it makes me feel proud and excited that you’d even think of wearing something of mine. I mean youre a great dresser, but i do think you occasionally get nervous to wear the things you truly want to. So when you wear my old jewlwery or use my clothes for your projects, it makes me feel proud. But also nervous that you’ll loose them.

M: Can i ask you what do you feelwhen you wear something of mine? does it have asignificance to you or do you just put it on and not think about it?

SR: I think yeah it defienty always feels special, not only because youre wearing a piece of your mums past on you but also because in a way you not have this piece of clothing that non eof your friends have, it feels rare, priceless in a way? if that makes sense. Looking at the photos of you and kind of trying to imagine you at that time or even see if i could see myself in you and it just made me think how special the photos are themselves.

M: Just ot of curisoity, how does it feel looking at phtoos of me at your age?

SR: So strange, like I’m looking at you, but a verison of you I’ve never met, only heard stories or seen phtos of so in a way, now the clothes you’ve saved form that time are what connects me to that past verison of you. It defiently makes me want to feel and get more connected wiht you as a person and how you expressed yourself. I also l really appreciate how freely you exoresssed yourself, in a way that’s different to teenagers nowadays, with social media i feel that everyone is too scared to be different or nervous to dress a certain way. The reason I found researching and talking with you about your past inspiration and fashion journey was leanring about all these women who paved the way for you when you were a young girl trying to find herself. It made me question who the modern equivalent of Siouxsie Sioux or Liz Fraser would be. Noot conforming to fashion norms or ‘rules’ but instead creating their own style and sharing it with the world. So thank you for this. I’d like to actually take inspiration from in now.

M: Thank you too. Im honoured to be your source of isnpiration actually.

Taking inspsiration from 80’s goth icon Siouxsie Sioux, I wanted the look to cross btween and combine both masculine and feminie styles. Layering differenet textures and fabrics with fish net tights and a pearl necklace, finishing the look with a mens vintage pinstripe blazer. Creating a boxy, powerful shilouette over quite delicate under layers of mesh and lace. Minna wears a pair of vintage kitten heels over patterned tights with lace up socks. Contrasting layers of black and white.

“Mystyleinspiration wasSiouxsieSioux andLizFrazer,and reallyanygirlsIsaw walkimngaroundtown whoIthoughtlooked cool”

By Sadhbh Rainbird