does it ever bother you that vintage clothing is a deceased person's clothing?

[scottyrocks]

My leather jackets are made from a dead animal's skin.

Seriously, as far as clothing that once belonged to someone who has passed, doesn't faze me a bit.

 

[scotrace]

Mmmm... brains....

 

[Edward]

I have a military bayonet collection and many are captured war souvineers from the enemy, I sometimes wonder if some may have been used in combat? some are from the 1850's - WWII era

but I read that bayonets are rarely ever used in combat, mostly used during guard duty or as a tool

but clothing is different, it may still have the sweat & smell of the previous owner, clothing is a more personal item than other objects like a book or old dishes, etc

Someone on another forum I frequent once mentioned a relative who had fought in WW2. This relative knew he had killed many men shooting from a distance, but the one whose face haunted him, having him wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night decades later, was the guy he dispatched with a bayonet.

The only item I own that kind of gives me the creeps is a WW1 German army gas mask that I found in a trunk full of stuff I bought years ago. It was brought home as a war trophy, and every time I look at it I wonder what happened to its original owner. He likely didn't come home from wherever it is he was sent.

Yes, nobody leaves something as essential as that behind unless they're making the final journey.

My leather jackets are made from a dead animal's skin.

lol

Mmmm... brains....

Send more cops.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Mmmm... brains....

 

[LizzieMaine]

http://designsofdallas.com/burial_suits

 

[Feraud]

I grew up wearing my dad's old milsurp gear, hats, jackets, etc, and gravitated towards other vintage as a teen. As long as something isn't stinky I don't have an issue wearing it. Old items have a history we can only guess at. Wondering is half the fun.

 

[Gin&Tonics]

Doesn't bother me in the least. The entire world has been walked on, sat on, eaten on, slept on, touched, rubbed, worn, used, etc etc etc. by dead people.

On the contrary, one of the things I really enjoy about handling or using old objects or being in old houses is thinking about the lives of the people who used them before. It's like a tangible connection to the past. I find it really fascinating to look at an old chair, for example, and think of all the people who have sat there before me and what their lives might have been like. Good times!

The dead are no longer with us in any case; they have gone on to their eternity, whichever place that may be, and the have no further use for the things of this world.

 

[Pompidou]

The only vintage clothes I have are suit jackets, of which I've got a handful or two, and I'm not bothered by the idea that the original owner might not be alive. Belonging to a now deceased person and being taken off a decaying corpse are two different things, after all.

 

[rocketeer]

I have a friend that will not wear anything even second hand(pre-owned to you eBayers) so he just buys the next best modern version and gets a tailor to alter the clothing to suit his taste.
J

 

[Miss Sis]

No, doesn't bother me at all! Probably quite the opposite - I *like* that it belonged to someone else before me. It's nice to hear a story behind it but I admit I don't usually think too hard about those items that don't have a written or spoken history when they come to me. I just like and admire the style. I probably think more about homemade items and the person who made them, what they liked and how they showed that in their clothing.

To me there is nothing like actual vintage clothes. I do make some of my own from vintage or new fabrics and vintage patterns but they just don't have the same 'feel' somehow.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

No. I'm a certified Death Hag. The fact that my belongings previously belonged to a person now dead just adds to the "awesome factor" to me.

 

[Angus Forbes]

I'm a certified Death Hag.

Trying to keep up with modern culture here -- what is a "death hag"?

 

[sheeplady]

I was thinking about this last night. My father (when he was house shopping 35 years ago) was in a house where in the middle of winter during Victorian times, several family members had died. The cellar had a dirt floor, so they buried the individuals in the cellar. It came complete with headstones and all. It was apparently customary to do something like this if they really couldn't get the body out to the family plot, or in some cases out of the house in the dead of winter. A neighbor who lives close to my parents discovered a child was buried about 5 feet from the door under a lilac bush- that is how far they could get her from the house out in 6 feet of snow. (It's important to add that winters where my parents live are brutal- total snow cover from November until April. It's not like these people were lazy, they were seriously snow trapped.)

But I've often wondered if my father had bought that house and I had grown up there, would I think that having people buried in your basement is normal? I probably would. We've probably been conditioned by our upbringing to not see anything wrong with used clothes. I know some people are not conditioned in the same way.

Our new house has a sand floor in the basement. No digging in the basement.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

And then in Victorian times post mortem photography was very popular. Very often it was the only photograph ever taken of the person. There were even photographers who specialised in post mortem photographs. The most bizarre I've seen were of the deceased propped up in a sitting or standing position to appear lifelike and often with family members posing with the corpse.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It wasn't just a Victorian thing -- my mother has a coffin photo of her older brother, taken in 1980.

 

[Miss Golightly]

No - it doesn't bother me in the least. I often wonder who owned the dress/coat before me, where did they buy it, for what occasion, were they delighted with it when they tried it on, where did they wear it to, what part of the world were they from, what did they look like?

I don't ever wonder whether the person died wearing the item - instead I always think of them going to a great party/dinner/soiree or even going into work in it and also what kind of life they had.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I was thinking about this last night. My father (when he was house shopping 35 years ago) was in a house where in the middle of winter during Victorian times, several family members had died. The cellar had a dirt floor, so they buried the individuals in the cellar. It came complete with headstones and all.

This would be my dream house. I've seen small cemeteries in people's back yards, but never heard of anyone being buried in a cellar!

I collect PM photos, too. I would like to hang them up around the house, but my husband won't let me lol

 

[Miss Golightly]

This would be my dream house. I've seen small cemeteries in people's back yards, but never heard of anyone being buried in a cellar!

I collect PM photos, too. I would like to hang them up around the house, but my husband won't let me lol

You sound like quite the ghoul Amy Jeanne! I'm also a bit of a death hag - crime scene photos being one of my favorite ghoulish things! I love Findadeath (I also greatly enjoyed Scott Michael's Dearly Departed and Six Degrees of Helter Skelter) - I take it you're acquainted with the site? Not sure however that I could stomach PM photos - I'm a little on the squeamish side....

 

[sheeplady]

This would be my dream house. I've seen small cemeteries in people's back yards, but never heard of anyone being buried in a cellar!

I collect PM photos, too. I would like to hang them up around the house, but my husband won't let me lol

You need to move further up north to deep snow! It's not so much the people you know that are buried there that bother me- it's the people that I could accidentally find. Disturbing the dead is neither good for me or for them.

I am friends with two cemetery photographers and one of them specializes in road side memorials and children's graves. Their house is full of cemetery pictures and roadside memorials. So I've gotten over my weirdness over that- I think. As far as the pictures thing, my parents have a picture of my father's uncle's casket hanging in their dining room. He died and they didn't have a picture of him. Since he died rather tragically and a picture of his body wouldn't do, they took a picture of the casket. Again, I always thought that was totally normal until I learned that other people didn't have pictures of caskets hanging on their walls.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Being that Google Earth is one of my favorite online toys I like "exploring" different parts of the world with it -- particularly the UK. I was looking at a streetview of Bath (i'm pretty sure it was Bath) and came upon an old 17th or 18th century church that's now an Italian restaurant -- nothing unusual there -- but what did blow my mind was that the graves in the small churchyard were still there!