HAND-ME-DOWN HEROES
Second-hand clothes fan Ruth O’Connor on the Irish women advocating for quality over quantity
Hand-me-downs. The very term is enough to send sartorial shivers down spines – particularly those of a certain vintage. Yet I believe wearing hand-me-downs as a child helped me forge a distinct sense of style and gave me an appreciation of quality that I might not otherwise have.
As small children, my sister and I wore matching cardigans for Easter and corduroy dresses for Christmas − all handmade by my talented mother. But there was a unique excitement between us about the exotic contents of a box sent to us annually by my American cousins in the days before globalisation and online shopping. Labels like Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren arrived all wrapped up in my aunt’s luxurious Cartier scent.
While the notion of a hand-me-down conjures, for some, embarrassing childhood memories of ill-fitting clothes and of need rather than want, they gave me a certain resourcefulness. I learned to see clothes as things that could be tried on almost like another character, and by adopting different personas, I discovered my own style through what I already had rather than what was in fashion.
It’s also meant that I’ve never had a problem with second-hand clothing, although others seem to. I’ve been laughed and shouted at for wearing secondhand or vintage clothes, but it’s never caused me to stop wearing those pieces that others have passed onto me. If anything, I prefer them, safe in the knowledge that nobody will be wearing the same thing as me. I also believe if the item has lasted this long, it’s because there is something inherently valuable in it, not monetarily necessarily, but emotionally and sartorially.
I see hand-me-downs as an opportunity to be part of something that had a previous life, and to think about how an individual might have lived in that garment. I’ve even been asked to take unwanted clothes from friends because they know this careful owner will look after them and give each one another life.
Art director and prop stylist Ciara O’Donovan has similar happy memories. Reared in West Cork alongside her five siblings, O’Donovan is a strong advocate of keeping the practice of hand-me-downs alive. She fondly remembers Granny O’Donovan’s Tara brooch, worn first by her older sisters and then in the 1990s by her on a green parka jacket. “I think my niece has it now,” she says.
On her first day working in Costume boutique in Dublin’s Castle Market, the 18-year-old O’Donovan opted to wear her grand aunt Betty’s navy and yellow polka dot dress with a pair of gold high-top trainers. “I was trying my best to look chic working in a fancy Dublin store. I can’t remember the label on the dress, but it was definitely ‘good’, as my mother would say. Only the best came from auntie Betty.
“Friends and family know that I’m extremely receptive to hand-me-downs and that I love nice things;
“There was very little waste at home, so I valued
this idea of a circular economy from an early age.”
I have my auntie Brede’s ruby dress ring, which she was given on her 21st birthday,” says O’Donovan. “My boyfriend’s mum has also passed on some beautiful pieces to me – handbags, jewellery and shoes.”
Geraldine Carton is a writer and co-founder of Sustainable Fashion Dublin. She believes that fast fashion has “sucked the soul out of clothes” and that, while it’s easier to buy a look straight off a shop mannequin, there is personality in wearing your mother’s jacket or your granny’s scarf.
Carton recalls a childhood friend being teased in school for wearing second-hand clothes. The mother of the child advised her daughter to tell the bullies that the clothes came from the “BBS Boutique”. Little did they know it stood for the “Big Black Sack Boutique”.
Quality is an important aspect of the appeal of hand-me-downs and one imagines that the contents of the Big Black Sack Boutique were far superior to any item bought for less than the price of a sandwich today. But surely, no hand-me-downs have ever exuded as much glamour as those worn by the young Alison Conneely.
Raised on a farm in the townland of Faul in Connemara, the fashion designer spent her days “reversing her go-cart into really tight spots” and “digging in the sandpit”. That was, until the Devriendt family (whose habitual residence was a château in France) bought a holiday home across the road – Maggie’s cottage.
“We set up camp, gawking at, and overseeing, the Devriendts’ move into Maggie’s cottage. Each arrival to Faul brought with it the finest threads from Paris,” says Conneely. “Before long, we were the beneficiaries of their cast-offs and the best-dressed children this side of the Shannon. I was the belle of the ball, the Queen of Faul, with my Baroque capes, silk ruffled blouses, suede jodhpurs, calf-skin leather pumps and chestnut velvet double-breasted coats.”
Conneely believes that these hand-me-downs gave her the confidence to wear what she liked, as opposed to what was in fashion, down through the years. Even now, as a designer, she is not swayed by trends. “My brand is not about trends,” confirms Alison. “We work with the finest textiles from artisan mills and we create standalone pieces.”
On Irish knitwear designer Pearl Reddington’s website, in a departure from the usual hard sell of retail, she advises that children will get at least two years out of her Leanbh baby cardigans “before passing them on to extremely lucky younger siblings or friendlings”.
“I come from a family of three sisters, so hand-me-downs are still a part of my daily life,” says Reddington. “I had a little Aran cardigan when I was small, which got passed onto Hazel and Iris. Seeing photos of the three of us years apart in the same jumper inspired me to create my own version 20 years later. Also, the making process of my garments is so slow, it’s only natural that I want them to be treasured for a long time.”
This is something fellow designer Conneely can relate to. Her passion for quality is due to those fabulous Devriendt hand-me-downs, but also to her father who helped her understand the value of buying something of quality that was made to last.
“Growing up on a farm in Connemara, our wool was sent to the local mill and returned to us in lengths of tweed, which were made into curtains or bedspreads. There was very little waste at home, and so I valued this idea of a circular economy from an early age.”
Perhaps then as consumers, we need to consider not only where an item of clothing has come from, but where or to whom it’s going. After all, it’s not only better for the environment, but who knows what precious memories it might inspire?
“I will always have an affinity with the cape,” says Conneely. “I remember tearing down the road on my go-cart, handme-down cape blowing in the wind behind me, en route to the sea at the end of the road to go jumping on the rocks and gather slime or seaweed on the beach.”
“Friends and family
know that I’m extremely receptive to hand-me-downs and that I love
nice things.”