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Chapter 2

1990s

The decade I stopped throwing things away.

1990 — 1999

This is the decade I stopped throwing things away. Not out of thrift exactly — more that I had started to notice which objects had been with me long enough to have become witnesses.

A thing you have worn through something difficult is not the same as the identical thing on a rail. It knows something. That is not a romantic claim, it is just how memory attaches itself to fabric.

The Quiet Years — Vintage T-shirt from 1993Kept

It is with someone else now. Whoever keeps a piece can send in a photo of themselves wearing it, for inclusion on the site. Subject to editorial approval.

The Quiet Years · Vintage T-shirtKept
Haryo Setyadi
Condition & details +

Excellent. Barely marked, with the collar just beginning to give.

  • Single-stitch construction throughout
  • Soft, well-washed cotton jersey
  • Measurements on request
  • Cold wash, dry flat

I got careful. I mended rather than replaced, and I learned which repairs improve a garment and which ones only postpone the end of it.

A thing you have worn through something difficult is not the same as the identical thing on a rail.

The pieces from here are the ones I had to be talked out of keeping, which is why there are so few of them and why they cost what they cost.

And then the decade ended the way they all do — quietly, and about three years after everyone agreed it had.

I still have the ones I could not let go of. These are the others.

What the 1990s bring back

These are not copies of the piece above. A decade leaves things behind in a person, and some of them are shapes. These came out of that.

Nothing Happened — T-shirt from 1993
Nothing Happened · T-shirt
Samuel Sng
Condition & details +

New.

  • Made from what the nineties bring back
  • Printed in a short run, not a one-off
  • Size range S to XL
  • Cold wash, dry flat
Tape Hiss — T-shirt from 1993
Tape Hiss · T-shirt
Timeless Clix
Condition & details +

New.

  • Made from what the nineties bring back
  • Printed in a short run, not a one-off
  • Size range S to XL
  • Cold wash, dry flat

At the heart of the brandis the heart of a man.

Aletross

Vintage finds and Aletross designs, each set into the chapter it belongs to. There is only ever one of each, and only one story per design.

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