This story is part of Image’s November Lost & Found issue, exploring the many lives our clothes and objects have, the many stories that are still waiting to be unearthed.
Our clothes hold us, shaping our experience and understanding of life in ways both subtle and profound. It’s that feeling of studying a photo of an ancestor, marveling at their outfit, trying to decipher who they were through each stylistic detail. It’s the pain of losing a favorite shirt, the remorse of giving something away too soon or the release of donating once-loved garments, offering them to new people and new perspectives. Wearing preloved clothing carries memory forward and also calls us back.
In many ways, entering a thrift store, shopping secondhand online or even borrowing clothing from a friend is like engaging with one massive lost-and-found bin. Each shop or closet is an amalgamation of history, energy and life, merchandised for discovery. On a sunny October day, we traveled to Malibu with a trunk full of secondhand clothes. With each outfit, we remembered and unearthed a future informed by the past.
Casting: In Search Of
Production: Mere Studios
Model: Sandrine Malary
Grooming: Carla Perez
Photo assistant: Mekael Dawson
Production assistant: Ron Davison
Romany Williams is a writer, editor and stylist based on Vancouver Island, Canada. Her collaborators include SSENSE, Atmos, L.A. Times Image and more.
