But the invocation of ghost clothes just then had the unintended effect of pinpointing my fleeting sense of belonging, of feeling at home in my clothes, and preserving it like a fly in amber. I can run in these, I can sweat in these, my skin can breathe in these, I can lie in the grass, I’m wearing what works for the weather and what the occasion demands, I am content.
So it’s a silly game, but there are layers to it. Ghost clothes are like that. And, of necessity, certain clothes and certain occasions seem to inspire that sense of sartorial memento mori more than others. In a cab on the way to the venue; or trying to make what I wore to a work meeting look okay for drinks afterward; or wearing some expensive, impractical, overly-formal fit that I’m not sure I could afford to get properly cleaned if anyone were to spill guacamole on it: ghost clothes.
Functionality is only one level of the game. Ghost clothes are also for calling out those moments when you’re wearing something unexpected that suits you, something you need an excuse to wear more often (or even, perhaps, every day for all eternity!) A bowler hat, flowers in your hair, a crown of laurels and a toga, rainbow-striped woolen arm-warmers, a pair of cat ears. (“Why are you wearing that?” “I had just tried it on at the flea market, and… you know.” Your fellow ghosts nod appreciatively!)
And, too, certain contexts (certain jobs, certain relationships, certain affluent American suburbs) require clothes that don’t suit you at all. In such cases, ghost clothes can serve as your wake-up call to find the right context– one where you feel at home, where you can wear what you truly love, wear what makes you feel most yourself.
The maybe-almost-too-corny subtext: Life is uncertain! We should live like there’s no tomorrow, and dress like each fit could be your last: your forever-after fit for the hereafter.
In the decades since that sun-soaked October afternoon when I lay on the grass and contemplated becoming a tube-socks-sporting soccer ghost for all eternity, the way that Westerners consume clothes has undergone a profound shift. With mass-production of ready-to-wear garments an established norm, the 1980s brought a sharp decline in U.S.-based manufacturing as companies shifted production to countries where labor was cheaper. Mail-order catalogs like J.Crew inspired imitators, which in turn primed consumers for the e-commerce boom. Trend cycles sped up, fueling the evolution of what we now call “fast fashion.”
And along the way, textile waste exponentially increased, far outrunning our capacity to deal with its environmental consequences.
My generation, and the next and the next, are now waking up to this reality. We may feel we weren’t the authors of that shift to overconsumption and disposable fashion, but we can drive the next one: the shift away from those modes. And we must. Because a radical reassessment and reinvention is long overdue.
In his introduction to The Social Life of Things, Arjun Appadurai argues that “...commodities, like persons, have social lives.” If clothes have a life (as Bordieu also reminds us that they do), they also have an afterlife. Clothes last a long time – in the context of a human lifespan, they last the meaningful equivalent of forever. If you don’t give them a long, useful life in your wardrobe, they’ll have a long life in the landfill, or as little plastic shreds in the ocean.