Fashion statement 3-15-26

Lately I find myself thinking about Tante Jans In “The Hiding Place.” The author Corrie Ten Boom describes her live-in aunt at the beginning of the 20th century as a deeply conservative, spiritual woman. Tante Jans declared mutton sleeves and other modern fashions like “bicycle skirts” as sinful. Tante Jans asserted the clothes detracted from spiritual focus. Over 100 years later, I chuckle at mutton sleeves being evil then turn around and rationalize my own objections to modern fashions including t-shirts and jeans worn all the places where we once wore only dresses or suits and ties.My grandson Eli likes to dress fashionably. He wears suits and ties when appropriate, but mostly he chooses t-shirts, shorts and sneakers. He is keenly attuned to brands, brand tags, and collectible graphics. Recently I helped him by mending what looked to me like just another t-shirt, but he said it was rare and highly collectible. He pointed out the differences in that shirt from another random shirt from a thrift store. “The pits are blown out of this shirt. If you mend it, I could sell it for hundreds,” he said. I looked at the worn t-shirt, shrugged my shoulders and chose a spool of thread. To mend the hole, I cut a patch from an old t-shirt of the same color. I hope he gets the heap of cash he claims it is worth just for its graphic design. All my teenage grandkids impress me. They haunt the thrift stores looking for name brands or unique clothing. In high school, Eli showed me a row of sneakers in his size, all purchased for a fraction of the price of brand new. Through thrifting he maintained an extensive, modern wardrobe and sold items for more when he no longer wanted them.As I mended for him, he sat beside me and talked about the market for collectible, vintage t-shirts. He avidly thrifts for t-shirts, to resell. It all began when a friend took him thrifting and had him help post items online. At the time, Eli showed me his friend’s postings of ragged, old coats with torn pockets, broken zippers and one with only a big safety pin holding it closed. The guy priced each in the hundreds of dollars.Eli now haunts the racks of t-shirts in thrift shops looking for the unicorns. When we asked to see him between college classes. He said, “let’s meet at the thrift store.”As we chatted, he flipped through shirts like an expert. “If you see this brand, it sells high,” he told me. He pulled a shirt with the graphic of a rock band from decades ago and confidently said, “I can sell this for $40. Like they say, ‘you have to spend money to make money.’”I nodded and noticed a new looking polo shirt for my husband. Eli would never consider it. Even without graphics it declares, “I’m retired.” We may not buy the same items, but we both shop thrift stores to stretch our incomes. I shop for clothes. Eli shops to buy and sell. He told me that he had been returning to Little Rock most weekends to participate in pop-up markets. He pays to participate and arrives with industrial totes filled with vintage, collectible t-shirts.It’s not my thing. To me we wear clothes to protect the body from the elements. Right?Not in El’s world. He likes wearing collectible, name brand clothes. He likes getting them for a bargain and will then literally turn around and sell them off his back for a profit to help pay for college. At times I do mentally echo Tante Jan’s early 20th century assessment of modern clothes. Yet, at the same time I approve of his 21st century ingenuity for getting ahead financially, no matter how little he dresses like guys did in the 1960s.