While reading Umberto Eco’s Lumbar Thought, I immediately thought of my leather jacket. This jacket is an item that constantly (almost hauntingly) reminds me of my body, as well as how bodies exists in socialized space. Procured from a Brooklyn Flea market, this jacket borrows various cues from the leather jacket lexicon; pockets, Double Rider collar, waist buckle, shoulder snaps etc. From the moment I tried it on, the weight of the jacket itself was one of its most discernible features. This heftiness is not only due to the thick supple leather, or the various accoutrements; many metal parts, zippers, pockets and clasps etc, but also to the weight such an item inherently has. I adopt an even more than usual devil may care attitude whenever I wear it, I find myself less apt to take part in the dreary social niceties of day to day life and find myself feeling protected in some almost indiscernible way. This perception of myself alters the way I approach the world, the manner in which I walk (or rather saunter) to my destinations, the body language I use, and these in turn affect the way that I am received, judged and dealt with in the world. The acoustic elements of the jacket, the wet squish of the sleeves rubbing against the body, the tinny clink of the zipper heads alongside the thick metal zippers, the way the waist buckle taps against my leg, these all further condition my movements and actions as well.  

As anyone who has ever worn one know, the most intense part of wearing a leather jacket is the acute awareness that you are in fact wearing a leather jacket. Specifically, wearing a garment that was a part of very particular points in history, and helped to craft and define spaces including decidedly political ones. One cannot look at, wear or consider leather jackets without conjuring up some cultural memory of its legacy, most notably from iterations in highly iconic American historical moments such as Marlon Brando’s performance in Wild Ones, the seminal punk performances of the Ramones in 70’s New York and leather daddies of San Francisco (amongst innumerable associations).

A leather jacket may even exist at the far end of the spectrum of bodily awareness (Eco’s having “jeans on”), with a white t-shirt existing at the other end of the spectrum (light, adaptable, soft, easy). It could very well be these characteristics, and its ability to serve as a reminder of our bodies that finds it put to such apt use as a political tool and by those attempting to access a cool “rebelliousness”.  It simultaneously provides protection for the wearer in a literal sense, with a hard body of seemingly impenetrable gusto, and allows the wearer to be made invisible by allowing associations to be projected onto them freely and without much thought (although this process is not unique to leather jackets).  One could argue that the leather jacket preferred by motorcyclists provides a dual function, it performs while under the physical duress of an impact with pavement, as well as dressing the body in an assumed cloak of “bad-assery”. As Eco states, “with my new jeans my life entirely exterior: I thought about the relationship between me and my pants, and the relationship between my pants and me and the society we live in.” This awareness of the body alternatively allows us to consider our bodies as sites, sites that receive violence from the state, oppression from society and are constantly subject to policing by various factions. In fact, this “armor” that Eco describes, might be useful in circumstances where we need to mediate the ‘wars’ inflicted upon certain bodies, such as women, people of color, queer folks etc. It seems that it is precisely these clothes, these ‘traps of domination’, are those which provide us the mindfulness of what it means to perpetually exist in a contested body, and in certain instances, they might help reflect some of that energy.  When I throw on the leather jacket, my awareness of the confines of a body comes in waves, rolling up the sleeves, I am aware of my body as an object, as I step outside, I am cognizant of the long lineage of those donning leather before me, as I walk the streets of the city, the jacket clinking and crinkling, I am reminded of the tenuous nature of my queer body in socialized space.

Alabama Chanin sought to understand a symbol when she undertook the painstaking task of deconstructing a t-shirt, seam by seam, just to hand sew it back together again. Her inquiry lead her to start a now famous line, (Alabama Chanin) using simple applique hand quilting methods, and the cotton jersey fabric of our beloved American staple, the t-shirt, to produce simple and singular clothing. Similar to Chanin’s methods of deconstructing and hand rendering something old in an attempt to get at something new, I will utilize methods of deconstruction to elucidate new information about my “old” shirt. This shirt, although relatively new (both to the world, and to me) feels particularly old, given our world of frenetic political fervor.  It certainly felt fresh when I happened upon it during a random stumble through the internet, a t-shirt that perfectly encapsulated my support for leftist wonderboy Bernie Sanders, while also referencing one of my favorite bands, the Ramones.

bernie meets ramones

Although the shirt itself is sold as merch for a Bernie supporting Ramones cover band called Bern Unit, I felt it was a strong enough design on its own to convey my political leanings to the masses, whether or not they had prior knowledge of the obscure band. I, not usually an internet shopper, decided to pony up the $12 and clicked buy. The shirt arrived in my mailbox later than I had hoped, luckily or unluckily enough, on the day of the Primary in New York, April 19th. As fate would have it, Bernie did not earn enough delegates for the nomination, and in less than 2 weeks, my new shirt was deemed worthless and old.

Still, I held on it, as a sort of relic, mostly wearing it to sleep in. I wondered, will this be an important vintage item in the coming years? When presented with our t-shirt project, this shirt immediately came to mind. What better item to re-envision than one whose vision for the future was cut short? To look to the shirts future, I thought it best to unpack a bit of its past.

The Ramones logo was crafted by Arturo Vega, a fixture in the world of Punk design, who also served as the band’s artistic director, lighting designer, t-shirt producer and salesman. The logo itself is now firmly situated in the world of American (perhaps even universal) iconography, and from its inception was a powerful tool for the band. The Ramones former manager gathered that the band probably sold more t-shirts than records, and maybe even more t-shirts than tickets to all of their 2,200+ live shows from 1974-1996 (with Vega attending all but 2). This logo, much like the music of the Ramones, is direct, simple and has a staying power that is undeniable. It is a direct reference, a copy, of the Presidential Seal, which Vega, born in Mexico, apparently saw on a trip to DC.  The elements of the logo, the arrows, the apple branch, the phrase on the script in the bird’s mouth (which once read, ‘Look out below’, but were changed to ‘Hey, ho let’s go’ after the band’s first single), the baseball bat in the eagles claw, all were chosen somewhat haphazardly by Vega, to convey his belief that the band was “as American as apple pie”.

og ramones logo

The White House Presidential seal from which the Ramones logo is derived, has an obscure history but supposedly originates with from a small seal used by the first President of the Continental Congress (Peyton Randolph) first formed in 1774 during the American Revolution, for the first national government. One could argue that the seal is in fact as old as the idea of America itself, undoubtedly a fitting choice for the logo of an ‘all American band’. Its evolution as a design follows the young country’s growth and desires, from sketches of the eagle holding arrows by President Millard Fillmore in 1850, to President Truman’s changing the positioning of the Eagle and olive branches to reflect a pursuit of peace aligned with that of the newly formed Defense Department in 1945, up until its final and current iteration, with the executive order of the design by President Eisenhower in 1960, sporting the addition of the 50th star for the newly acquired state of Hawaii.

official

The changes of these logos over time reflect the way that emblems such as these evolve to convey changing trends, information and affiliation. Although the formats of these respective logos may be static now, the constant permutations and references made to them, seemingly infinite, reflect the ways in which we appropriate signs from our visual lexicon to decree alliance to institutions of the past, be it punk bands or our national government, or use them for humor, and even to appropriate or approximate the power with which they operate. A basic google search shows countless variations of the Ramones logo, the website redbubble.com has over 31 versions in its ‘Women’s Relaxed Fit Shirt’ category alone.

This Ramones logo my shirt references is a perfect fit given Bernie Sanders’ White House aspirations. But these two forms, the logo and t-shirt, are a relatively new union, and my shirt would not have been possible before the 20th century. In fact, it would take over 100 years after the birth of the Presidential emblem for the t-shirt to be born, and like many fashion items considered staples today, it started in the military. A simple pull over version of the t-shirt, designed to be worn under a uniform, became standard issue of the US Navy during the American Spanish war of 1898. The shirt quickly evolved to be the outerwear we know and love today, due to its affordability (cheap Cotton) and suitability for workwear, it was added to the Merriam Webster dictionary in the 1920’s. The first printed t-shirt could very well have been those worn by the workers featured in the Castle of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1938, whose shirts are simply emblazoned with the name of their boss (OZ). The t-shirt’s mass-appeal as outerwear was driven home when donned by Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).

first t-shirt?

As the t-shirt seems applicable and attractive to virtually every mode of fashion, from couture to work-wear, one must wonder, what makes it so permeable, so mutable? Perhaps this mysterious permeability lies in its ubiquity, its legibility and its ability to be a sounding board for the tautological nature of today’s frenzied pace of design references. It seems to inherently reference all other t-shirts before it, rendering its particular history, and relative individuality either incredibly important (see sought after vintage band t-shirts selling for thousands) or irrelevant (see graphic tees in Forever 21), as well as furiously obscuring the conditions of its production. It exists at once continually on the cusp of our cultural imagination, bolding proclaiming views or lifestyles, while the object itself, the t-shirt behind the message, is desperately hard to tie down as a symbol.

Holding my Bernie shirt, it’s white ink still bright, the black cotton soft from multiple launderings, I consider it’s afterlife, its political economy as a symbol, as a construct, and most wholeheartedly an object through which I will consider on these functions. What will you become? I ask of it. What should you become? Why? Will your form, that of the t-shirt, be around in 100 years? In 500?

I picture Chanin’s hands, carefully yielding a seam ripper to that first t-shirt, gingerly undoing its structure stitch by stitch. I imagine her meditating on form, on function, on the ways in which we don’t question that which we read as background information, the things we take as given, and the normalcy of these assumptions, as plain as a simple t-shirt.

A large white tent, a simple folding table, two wire containers, fitted with large white plastic bags, a sign, mounds of plastic bags, a scattered pile of flyers and papers, a tall man in a black Carhartt jacket talking softly into headphones.

Unlike most of the other tents at the Union Square Green market, this tent has nothing for sale. Its simple structure is devised only to receive, these one-way transactions overseen by a single person, with human interaction kept to a bare minimum. The company who occupies this 10’ x 10’ square, Wearable Collections, is present on Mondays and Saturdays at the Green Market, and seeks to relive the denizens of New York City of clothing refuse and a limited selection of textile items. They prefer clothing that is usable shape, ie: not tattered beyond recognition, and yes they will take towels, but no they will not take duvet covers (bed bugs, duh).

donation closeup

The rules, methods, and interactions of this exchange, both implicit and explicit, I sampled, while observing the ins and outs (mostly ins) of how textile waste collection happens at the Union Street Green Market on a Monday afternoon. My initial inquiry took the shape of what participants chose to drop off and why, as well as the viewpoints, perspectives on behavior and myriad experiences of Wearable Collections employee, who I will call J. As a research site, I was concerned with the emotional labor and coding of stories, and the transference of care that occurred as these textile objects changed hands. Thinking on textiles of ubiquity for a forthcoming paper, my research has lead me to examine the ways in which objects such as an old t-shirt make their way into the fluff of utilitarian items such as moving blanket, the object of my most recent study. As a meditation on care, the affective power of textiles, and the anonymity of items such as a moving blanket in late Capitalism, I was chiefly interested in this outpost, the Wearable Collections site, as a key actor in the shifts of goods through hands and systems that encode them for emotional & physical labor and utility. My musings with the staff, brief snippets of conversations with participants, and the physicality of this experience elucidated more lines of questioning, more obfuscation of purpose, and ultimately, reveled the deeply seeded anxiety people feel about of flow of goods.

This anxiety first took the form about what happens after the clothes are donated to Wearable Collections, and whether or not they knew it is a for profit company. Two people remarked that they would have brought their clothes to a nearby charity shop, if not for the items not being in more favorable condition, or the convenience of the Green Market. Within this relationship of the transference of clothes, the anxiety of their afterlife does not seem to apply to particular items, ie: the old t-shirt, the shoes a child outgrew etc., but rather to how the clothes will function in the world after they are deposited into the white garbage bags. “I just hope its going to a good cause,” remarked a woman who has been living in the Union Square area for 40 years. With the increased exposure to the secondary lives of textile objects, through books such as The Travels of the T-shirt by Pietra Rivioli, and the Planet Money t-shirt podcast series, a seemingly wider public has been exposed to the stories of our discarded objects, bringing these questions of how our items get used, what markets they will be a part of, and who will use them to our collective imaginations. Wearable Collections situates itself within a decidedly altruistic context, capitalizing on identity as an eco-friendly service, as well as operating under the auspices of a charitable organization. When questioned about what percentage of clothes will be given to “those in need” J told 2 participants (of the 10 I observed) that roughly 20% are donated. The other items are sold, for 20 cents up to a dollar per pound to third party businesses, where they enter the exceedingly complex and dynamic used clothing markets of Africa and Asia. This seems to be the tipping point for participants, who may harbor misgivings about this monetized changing of hands. J detailed an exchange he had with an irate woman some 2 months ago, who admonished him in particular, and Wearable Collections at large, for “ruining the style of Africa” by flooding their markets with cheap American clothes. He was quick to remind her that the model they currently operate under, selling to third parties, absolves them from control over what happens in the clothing’s afterlife, and in my reading, the guilt about their many end uses.

donated by a local resident

Other anxieties that were present were centered around the status of the things that people dropped off, “is this okay?”, “good enough condition, yeah?” In discussing what is acceptable, and not acceptable for Wearable Collections, J reiterated the motto of the company “clothing is not garbage” remarking that the state of the items needs to be in a good enough condition for the item to be resold. Ranking the oddest items he had ever received, he recounted an instance of someone who brought used tampons and attempted to recycle them. Thinking about the gamut of items, J said, “textile is a double edged sword” meaning that, many things fall under this umbrella term, and perhaps we live with our own definitions of what is and what is not a textile item, and in turn, what of these items one could reasonably recycle. While Wearable Collections has a particular end goal in mind, turning these donations into a profit, there are particular grey areas that the donator is left to determine for them selves, the minutia of which the employees are tasked with disputing. The trick is making certain distinctions clear, and it seems to be this person to person interaction that is the company’s preferred methodology to do so, where the workers let the donators know the changing landscape of items they will accept, ways they will accept them, and who they will accept them from.

Strangely enough, I saw the anxiety around these changing landscapes with my first interview of the day, Alice, an acquaintance of mine. She mentioned that she had been coming to this location to ‘recycle’ her clothes for about 7 years. As a resident of Manhattan, she finds it convenient to her residence, and as a textile researcher and artist, does not want to contribute to the massive landfill textile input. We talked about a shirt of hers she was donating, a simple plum Marimekko shirt from the 90s. Why? It had changed shape, she had changed shape, and well, it no longer made sense for her she said. Alice was also keen to talk about what had changed conditions at the Wearable Collections station, “2 years ago, you took almost anything”. She bantered with the employee, complaining that the person who works on Saturdays (not J) was too stringent, she was noticeably irritated at the disparity of the list of items J was showing her (on the companies literature).

marimekko from the 90’s being donated

This interchange exemplified the interesting quandary of labor in these arrangements, where notions of power, who is working for whom, and how and when these items will produce capital is obscured. Many of the participants I observed seemed to treat J as an employee of theirs, and most of the interactions contained a simple questioning of protocol; “where do I put these?”, “do I put them in this bin?”, “is that it?” Thinking on these conditions, I wonder how Wearable Collections conceives of these participants, as they are indeed producers, generating the raw material the business is built on. Are these anonymous donators considered employees? Are they Independent Contractors? Are they simply actors and agents utilizing a convenient service? Where does the fulcrum of power truly lie, and how much concession is needed on the side of Wearable Collections to keep the steady flow of material into their coffers? On the other side of the spectrum, Wearable Collections must have a profitability index, where they must receive a certain quantity, and indeed quality to make this elaborate operation worthwhile. Most of the participants I interacted with were repeat donators, some for upwards of 5 years, and seemed to be thankful for the service that Wearable Collections provides.

If the anxiety of afterlife, acceptability and labor are present for the donators, J seemed to be relatively free of these worries, mostly concerned about whether the impetus of my inquiry would be critical of the company. His care, ability to empathize and belief in the model, were ever present in my conversation with J, who had incredible moments of humanity to share. If Wearable Collections is looking to both turn a profit and appear charitable, conditions seemingly in conflict by the estimation of some donators, J had also witnessed and actively participated in the benevolent aspects of this clothing exchange site. He mentioned that on several occasions, houseless people would ask for clothes, or he would offer them, with a particular instance he recalled of giving jackets to folks in need during the winter months. Detailing the exchange, he mentioned that he makes a judgment call, “does this person really look like they need this?”

interior of donation bin

For deals in what is ostensibly refuse, the interactions I observed are notably different from accounts I’ve found of the dirty and rough work of ‘rag and bone men’, on both the sides of recipient and donator. Every item I saw donated, even by those who were seemingly rushing, came neatly folded and in clean condition and was gingerly placed in the bins. J himself carefully bagged up and moved the items, assuredly and conscientious arranging the piles of filled bags to the back of the space. Perhaps this speaks to the affluent area surrounding Union Square, but I was certainly struck by the care I observed in these moments of transference. My own research into the manipulations some of these textiles will undergo, as they are shredded and overseen by massive machines, are processes I have conceived of as violent in nature. The contrast between my assumptions about these transferences, brings me to question my own deeply seeded beliefs about how ‘care’ for our textile items is translated through these shifts of materiality. The trajectory of these items, from our closet, to the Wearable Collections bin, to the rag industry, to the filling of a moving blanket, is presided over by seemingly infinite many hands, machines and perhaps, infinite forms and types of caring, or so I’d like to think. Maybe this shift happens simultaneously, as the object changes shape, its not that our caring for these items stops, but rather the shape of our care changes.

good bye and good luck