Kinship, communion and clothing
Written for and printed in Almanac for Slow Living
Dedicated to my mother and my grandmother, you have instilled in me something special. To all the family members whose clothes I have taken. To Nicola, the team at Little Sister, and the good women at Sloe.
Sharpay Evans was right. It is out with the old and in with the new. So, my ins and outs for 2024 are as follows - not going with the flow (out) and actively going after what I want (in). I am currently failing but trying nonetheless. As part of this, I will be leaving my flat of 3 years and venturing into the unknown.
As the sun sets a bit later and the weather is stuck deciding if it wants to get warmer, I’m packing bits of my life into labelled boxes. Within the walls of my flat, I started, complained about, and completed my masters; got a dream job that actually wasn’t so dreamy, left numerous others; experienced heartbreak, diagnoses, immense breakthroughs, the warmth of friendship, and lots of mice. As I downsize these years to suitcases and dedicated piles for charity, I’m finishing my first watch of Sex and the City. Like Carrie, I am waxing lyrical about clothes, shoes, bags. Unlike Carrie, there’s a bit more to this (stay with me).
Growing up, there was a suitcase of clothes that my mum swore we’d grow into. Sometimes we did, sometimes we didn’t. I didn’t always love this - I figured things wouldn’t be as cool by the time our bodies caught up to the sizes. There were also bags of clothes we’d fill as we cleared out wardrobes to make space for something new, and gift what was loved by us to be loved by others. That’s sort of the rule of charity. What’s mine is yours and what’s yours becomes someone else’s. Garments, accessories, they’re made to be worn and loved and shared, like all the couples in Gossip Girl. Somewhere along the way, I started rummaging through other people’s closets. My wardrobe became a prime example of having a child and having nothing to yourself. And as the youngest and only girl, the rules of charity were somewhat different from me - what was everyone else’s was also mine. My grandma has always been keen on charity shops and markets, fostering a close relationship with sellers and stalls. Shopping with my mum, she’d make a beeline for T.K Maxx or Marshalls. For my mother, shopping is an act of service which in itself is kinda biblical. Giving of yourself, your time and your possessions are all in the Bible and my mother, like hers, is well versed in this. It’s with this keen eye, my mum would find great deals for herself, for others, for me and when I started to come into my own, those were my go to shops as well. It is because of those stores with tag lines like big stores-small labels, I began my education into brands and designers. I learnt they were always priced lower than the high street. This has since shaped my approach to luxury - simply put, I do not engage.
Little Sister, you will always be famous
My entire secondary school education took place within the walls of two boarding schools in Nigeria and the UK. My preteen self was developed on the grounds of Corona Secondary School in Ogun State and the subsequent years from 13 - 17, at Mount St. Mary’s College in Sheffield. My time spent in Corona was vastly different from my experience in Sheffield. The transition from majority to minority, two seasons to whatever the weather does in this country, it took a lot of getting used to. The biggest change however, was I no longer had a cheque book of fifty and one hundred naira notes. I went from Monopoly money to the big leagues because I finally had an allowance. This means I had enough money to spend £70 on a huge Primark shop, which at 13 was more than the pocket money I was given in the first place. Alongside this stint of discovering sizing in these stores sucked (Zara, H & M, count your days), I also started paying more attention to my grandparents' clothes. At a time when bigger and baggier was my comfort, theirs had a complementary cosiness and I wanted to look as good as they did. Never one to shy away from colours and jewellery, grandma’s style is chic, bold and frankly all-round excellent. A particular two-piece which I unfortunately do not fit in has a certain C.C Babcock look - if she wore colour that is. Grandpa seemed to have a quiet respect hemmed into his garments and in the way he’d wear them. His easy going nature still matches my grandma’s frills and cuts - a perfect pairing both in clothes and in their nearly 60 years of marriage. I began to appreciate the clothes, shoes, bags and jewellery my mum would pass down to me. They weren’t quite my style; until, suddenly, they were. Charity shopping and thrifting were quiet tenets of my upbringing but more specifically, fostered bonds of kinship between mother and only daughter, grandmother and grandchild. Offshoots of my father, my brothers, my cousins were and still are acknowledgements of familial relationships sewed into the fabric of garments I still have.
In the past few months, I’ve been trying to figure out what my style is. Put pen to paper, string words together to tell you who I am and what I wear. And I can’t, because like so many, in a bid to find myself, I have defined myself as an outlier, going against the grain intentionally and unintentionally in what I did and didn’t put on. However, I have since been cultivating a finer relationship with my attire. The cycle of fast fashion might be quicker than ever right now but the long-lasting revisitation of fashion trends are more than small windows of opportunity. My mother and my grandmother, in their quiet ways, were sowing the seeds for my relationship through subconscious tenets of sustainability long before I even knew what it was. I have dabbled in the fast fashion circles and I have not and will not always get it right. But I have developed a keen sense of me-ness in the way I shop and in what I shop for. I know what I like and what I don’t like. I know things I’m willing to try and things that absolutely will not work for me. I know how to navigate my thoughts of my body through styling this with that, and precious to me, I know how to have fun with them.
More importantly, I think of how clothing, both on myself and in the commentary I give to others - I like this, I’m not sure about that but that’s just my opinion, I think you should get it still - has continued to build on the foundation that my mother and grandmother laid for me. I have stores I will swear by, being blessed and lucky enough to experience and be surrounded by owners and sellers who curate their selection. To experience the love and care that went into putting these pieces together. Who want the best items for you to look and feel good in, who want you to experience the clothing and not just buy it. It has nurtured my relationships with friends, blessed my communion with myself and ultimately - as one hobby I never went to monetise (thank God) - been my return to volunteering. The sheer prospect of sharing to others what has been done for me, is biblical.
In: kinship, clothing and communion
