How I transformed an old t-shirt into a navy hat

There are some clothing items I just won’t get rid of. Most people I know do as well. There’s always something older than 10 years, if you are too young to have this, you’ll soon figure out which item of clothing will outlive them all.

Clothing holds sentimental value, we add it to the clothes worn when we first rode a bike, met our best friend, or went out to our first big event like a concert; I think we add sentimental value to clothing in our way, for things the next person would never. I hold on to clothing from moments when I have felt the most free; or at least the most free for the first time. The feeling of being free changes over time, and only gets larger, if all goes well. I can go down a road talking about freedoms and privileges, genocides, and slavery existing on the same planet at the same time, but that is not how I want to frame this blog post. I want to focus on a t-shirt I purchased when I was 18 or 19 which is an almost 20-year-old t-shirt.

Picture a young Mexican immigrant living their life as an American teenager, soon to be a young adult, who was given the chance to work thanks to a “fake” or “stolen” social security number, one with the right to employment. Getting their first few paychecks, balancing family, work, and school… or the end of school and the beginning of a lifetime of choices. Good and bad ones.

The purchasing power this kid now had was imprinted on a green and grey striped t-shirt from H&M. The power of choice, a symbol of independence, an American rite of passage, the coming of age of another sheep, a consumer choosing to buy manufactured clothing made by hands in working conditions unbeknownst to him. The shirt was one of millions sold across the US market and who knows where else.

Having had this shirt for a couple of years and running into a colleague who herself had the same shirt, I realized our sense of style was not what helped us to be more than colleagues. This shirt would be a beacon of independence, it marked a moment when we discovered drugs together and experienced a certain kind of freedom of choice.

However, the last 20 years have taken its toll on this shirt, and I can no longer use it, even as a PJ. This shirt, 20ish years later, is barely holding on. Holes and rips in various places. Discolored green stripes, thinning panels, paint stains, armpit discoloration, collar deformation, erosion you name it; this shirt has seen better days, and golly has it seen some days. Holding it up, I risk ripping this shirt further just by holding it. So it was retired to my "future projects" bin. Sat there for a couple of years.