The Sad But Dramatic Life Of An Ordinary Shirt

Innovative tracing technologies can track some clothes from the farm to the consumer. But what do they tell us about the quality of that journey? What is life like for the clothes? If people understood that journey better, maybe they would keep clothes longer. This is the story of one shirt’s life told by that shirt.

Like all cotton shirts, I started life on a farm. But I can’t remember that far back. I can remember the factory in Bangladesh.

They call these factories sweatshops, and I can tell you why. Ours was smelly and oppressively hot. It’s a miracle that clothes emerged looking shiny and new, given how filthy it was in there.

I felt sorry for the workers, who couldn’t complain. Not about the stench, or the long hours spent hunched over and squinting at their work under bad lighting, or about the single toilet, which really was just a dirty hole in the floor. Anyone who put up a fuss, would get fired.

My earliest memory is of Devi. She was 11 and built like a matchstick. She sat cross-legged on the concrete floor, holding me in her lap. Her job was to snip away the loose threads that hung off my buttons and seams.

I like to think I was a particular favorite of Devi’s. When she got hold of me, she had already been working since morning, and now it was night. She was extremely careful. I can still feel her small fingers — delicate as snowflakes — pressing me lightly as she searched for loose threads. She was so careful not to leave any marks.

I think Devi wanted the best for me. She wanted me to get out of that filthy place. And to be absolutely perfect for another girl— probably her same age — living thousands of miles away.

Not long after, I was boxed up with hundreds of other shirts and shipped to London. On that trip I met Dot. She was a T-shirt with enormous dots all over. Her dots were pink and yellow and green, in shades popular when Lilly Pulitzer was all the rage. Dot had a lopsided, oversized cut. It’s the kind of style that looks fine on a hanger or when pinned from behind on a mannequin, but awful on a real person unless they are tall and thin and gorgeous like a fashion model.

Dot said she felt ashamed of the way she looked. She said it would have been fine if she’d been made for a really little kid or as pajamas. But she was designed for juniors. She worried — as we all did — that before long she’d be tossed in a landfill, where she’d spend the rest of her days decomposing on a steaming heap of trash, swarming with flies and crawling with rats.

I didn’t say so, but Dot was right to be scared. It’s not good to be too hip and too cheap. Western girls will still buy you — they buy so many more clothes than they can possibly wear — but they won’t wear you for long.

Rich Clothes Have It Better

We’d heard about clothes from other factories that were made with more style and care, and with better materials. The kind that cost more than a factory worker in Bangladesh earns in years. These clothes were said to have longer, better lives.

Rich people bought them and stored them in big walk-in closets that smelled of lavender. These clothes were only worn maybe once a month, but they could stay in a closet for years.

Some were so special, no one would ever want to part with them. When people stopped wearing them, they would pass them down to their children like an expensive watch. Can you imagine being that precious to someone?

A Home at Last

I’m a lucky shirt. I didn’t stay long in a box. I went to a popular High Street shop and got folded neatly on a shelf. Many clothes aren’t that fortunate. They never see a High Street. They end up at discount stores, squeezed between others on long racks, where people can hardly see them. Some — and I shudder to tell you — get incinerated. That’s right. Burned up and disposed of without ever being worn at all. But I don’t want to talk about that.

Life in the shop wasn’t bad. I loved mornings best when it was quiet and the shoppers hadn’t yet come. Later it could get stressful. So many people, pulling at you, yanking you on and off, and some dropping you on the floor and leaving you there. I got stepped on once, like a piece of garbage.

Ruth would always pick me up, and gently fold me and put me back on top of the other shirts on the table. I think she knew how much I wanted to go home with someone.

It’s all we dreamed about. To be loved and cherished. To keep a body comfortable and warm. To be worn everywhere and shown off. These are the fantasies of clothes!

The day my girl picked me up was the happiest day of my life. She spotted me from across the room, raced over, scooped me up and hugged me to her chest. I knew we were going to be together forever.

She told her mom she had to have me. There was nothing like me in the whole universe. Me!

Her mom seemed less convinced. I think I saw her roll her eyes. But before you knew it, the two of us were running off to the dressing room.

Just as I suspected, I looked great on her. She looked so happy. I can’t tell you how happy it made me to finally be worn by a real live girl! Her skin was warm. She smelled like bubble gum. She smoothed me down, and turned to her side, admiring us both in the mirror.

Sure enough, she took me home and it was just like I dreamed. She wore me every chance she got. It was like she didn’t have any other shirts. If she went out with friends, or took Instagram photos or made TikTok videos, it was always with me! Sometimes at night I got to sleep right on the foot of her bed in that cozy room, so I’d be easy to grab and wear again the following day.

But somewhere in the back of my collar, I had this nagging feeling. Other clothes said it would never last. She’d tire of me. Move on to other shirts. Kids like her have so many choices. The day would come when I’d be shoved between all the other shirts and dresses and skirts and jackets, deep in the back of her closet.

That day came sooner than I expected. After just two months, she stopped wearing me.

Shipped Off Again

Her mom bagged me up with other clothes one day when she was at school. It was just like we were trash. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. The other clothes in the bag — which I admit I had looked down on as less popular than me— stayed quiet. For a month we sat in that bag in the boot of the family’s car until we were finally dumped at a charity shop. It’s been pretty difficult ever since.

But looking back, the charity shop was hardly the worst of it. After a week in the bag in the back of the shop, Freya pulled me out, gave me a sniff and a shake and hung me on a rack. It felt shameful at first to be on those racks, but I tried to stay positive.

A few days passed. Every time another trash bag full of clothes arrived, we’d grow less optimistic. With this Covid virus going around, and everyone home and cleaning out closets, the bags just kept piling up in the shop. Freya and the others were at their wits’ end.

It was worse for us clothes. The charity shop was our last shot at going to a good home. If you hung too long without being bought, word was, you’d get bagged up again and sold for scraps to a “rag man”, or some said you could get shipped all the way to Africa. That seemed pretty far-fetched.

We also heard that sometimes workers got so overwhelmed by so much stuff coming into the shop that they would dump those of us not selling in the bins out back. At that point, the best you could hope for was to be snatched up by a homeless person. That was better than becoming a rag.

My Final Home

You’re not going to believe it, but I ended up in Africa. I thought everyone was kidding. But after three weeks hanging in the charity shop, I was put in another trash bag. There we sat for another few weeks in the back room of the shop. Then one day a man with a van arrived and off we went.

By the time I reached Ghana, I admit, I was pretty tatty. But never mind. Here you can still be bought and loved by someone even if you are stained and have threads hanging off.

I try not to think how sad it would make Devi to see me now.

I landed on a table at a market stall run by a beautiful woman named Kosiwa. She had a tough life selling used clothes in the hot sun, but she seemed happy. She used to hum all day, and that was a great comfort.

She and I both knew the odds of me finding a home again were small. Each day, as more clothes piled up, and I slipped further under the heap, we could see it was only a matter of time before I went to a landfill.

And so, now, here I sit. It’s the end of my journey. It smells bad at the landfill, but at least it’s sunny. Sometimes I think of those nights when I slept, well-loved on the foot of a bed in a cozy home. I remember how my girl said she loved me best, and I think she did, if only for a little while. I try not to be sad. That’s just how life is for a shirt.