Wearing my Grandfather's Pocket Change

My grandfather owned a car dealership. Due to his work, he would travel a lot so he collected coins. But not like coin collectors do where they polish them up and keep them in glass frames or cases, my papa would come home from a long trip and toss them in the top of a shadow box table. That may sound fancy, but he used it more like the bowl near your front door where you throw your keys and whatever is taking up space in your pockets. It was a small three legged wooden table with a circular glass top you could screw off to reveal a velvet padded surface used to showcase something beautiful. It was full of dirty old coins from every country you could think of and the occasional crumpled up dollar bill.

As a kid, I was always fascinated by the table. Even to this day, I find it to be the perfect combination of something ordinary yet, upon further examination, really interesting and special. I used to sit on the floor next to my papa and point my sticky little fingers up to the glass and ask, “where’s this one from?” He would be posed cross legged in a big velvet wing-backed chair smoking a cigar telling me about his most recent trip to Japan or Italy. He had the biggest presence of any man I had ever met and I wanted to live a life as interesting, yet simple, as his.

Flash forward to senior year of high school, I hadn’t seen my papa in a while. Ever since he got Alzheimers we didn’t get to visit as much. I knew he wasn't adding to his coin collection anymore but I hoped he still looked the table from time to time and remembered the especially old ones. I was sitting in the car with my mom when she got a call one rainy afternoon that he had passed.

I couldn’t go to the funeral. I was in Vancouver and he lived a 6 hour flight away in Halifax and I was deep into university applications building my portfolio for fashion school. I spent hours those months cutting fabric for my collection and thinking about what a life he had lived. I got a call from my mom a couple days after the funeral when she was cleaning out his things, asking me if I wanted anything. I asked my mom if she had room in her suitcase for a table.

Sure enough, days later I was placing the coins back in the top of the table just as he had them and screwing on the glass lid. I also added my favourite antique sewing shears and a couple of brass buttons so my life could merge with all the stories held inside those coins. That very month, I was accepted to fashion school in New York City. The table took its’ second flight across the country to join me in my first big adventure.

One sunny New York day I came home from class and tossed my metro card and a couple of city-covered dirty US coins in my table and sat down to look at the swatches for my thesis collection. I had no idea what I was going to make yet but I smiled when I saw one of the velvet pieces I had picked up at the fabric store matched the lining in the table. The velvet was just barely poking through under the weight of the change and the light from my one small apartment window made the plain old coins sparkle. That is when inspiration struck. My thesis piece in my final year of fashion school would be a big warm rust coloured swing coat with hand sewn coins hanging from the collar like little jewels. I got on eBay and ordered a 5 pound bag of miscellaneous world coins, as not to mess with the delicate balance of the one’s papa collected, and got to work.

I cut each pattern piece for the coat and matching velvet skirt and stitched them together with meticulous detail. I used a diamond drill bit to pierce one tiny hole in the top of each coin and then a long needle and extra sharp snips to hand stitch them on. In the end it weighed more than the table which inspired it.

The judges, who determined who would take part in the final exhibition showcase for the New York Fashion Institute, had to do a double take when they saw my mannequin. “Is that pocket change?”, they asked. My garment was selected for the showcase.

My papa owned a car dealership, he didn’t live a glamourous life but he worked hard. He may not be around to remember how he collected all those coins and what they represented, but I sure do. I moved to New York City at 17 with nothing but some scissors, a couple of brass buttons, and old money I couldn't spend, but he inspired me to make something beautiful out of something that just appeared ordinary.