On Loving My Clothes With Stains and Holes

Learning how to embrace stains feels like a crucial step on the journey towards building a truly sustainable wardrobe.

One recent evening while ironing laundry, I noticed a faint bleach stain on a J Crew men’s button-down linen shirt I had thrifted earlier this year. While the stain’s origins remain a mystery its presence was indisputable. The fabric had been stripped of its spidery blue pinstripes, revealing a dime-size patch of naked white fabric underneath. A few years ago, this mark might have sent me spiraling into frustration: How could a beautiful piece barely six months old be RUINED already? But this time I saw the stain and let out a sigh of resignation. However unsightly, I wasn’t going to let a bleach stain ruin an otherwise perfectly good shirt. I have better things to care about.

For the last while, I have actively been trying to shift my relationship with imperfections in my clothing. Stains and holes are perceived as blemishes that diminish the wearability of a garment at best and end its lifespan altogether at worst. They’re a problem that must be solved, either through excessive physical effort (elbow grease) or money (an expensive trip to the dry cleaner). But as I continue building a mindful wardrobe, I find myself more reluctant to get rid of things I enjoy and have thoughtfully acquired, simply because they no longer adhere to my expectations of how clothing ought to look. Now, I try to tell myself that when something has a stain, that article of clothing isn’t necessarily worthless, it just has some extra seasoning from life sprinkled on. 

This nonchalance is cultivated out of necessity. I blow out the armpits in every white shirt I own in a matter of months, like some sweaty demon. The yellowed armpits peeking out are deeply unbecoming, yet I continue to wear the shirts hoping nobody notices. No matter how long I soak the shirts in OxyClean or how much bleach I subject them to, the sweat stains never quite go away. This year, a Comme des Garçons shirt I purchased in 2017 finally passed the point of no return, but I couldn’t bear to throw it out so I attempted to cover up the stains by dunking it a bucket of black dye. This did…not work. The process was thwarted by air bubbles on two separate occasions, giving it a slight tie-dye effect. I don’t love how it looks, but I’m also determined enough to continue wearing the shirt that I’m trying to make peace with it for now. 

Stains are a natural part of life. Objects that we use and wear show visible signs of age. But I’m fascinated with the tension between the recent cultural fetishization of beat-up accessories—Exhibit A: Mary Kate Olsen’s dinged and scratched Birkin— vs the perception of stained clothing as dirty and disheveled. I’ve even seen (incredibly stupid IMO) videos of influencers pouring wine and incinerating sections of their designer bags with lighters just to make them appear more used. Pardon me, but couldn’t you just…use the bag?

What exactly make it honourable to handle highly-expensive accessories without a pair of kid gloves, yet wearing regular clothing with visible stains is unacceptable? Can we still be considered neat and tidy while sporting clothes with visible imperfections? Is it possible to reframe wearing stained clothing as frugal as opposed to slovenly? 

For the most part, I try to tell myself that most people don’t notice stains–the old adage that no matter what you’re self-conscious about, it’s probably not that big of a deal. Most people are primarily too concerned with how they are perceived by others to notice small defects in other people’s clothing. 

More and more, I’m convinced that embracing stains (aka rejecting cultural expectations of perfection) feels like a crucial step on the journey to building a truly sustainable wardrobe. It’s one thing to accept stains in clothes you already own, but when it comes to secondhand clothing, would you go as far as to knowingly acquire stained clothing and wear it anyways? I recently found an elegant asymmetrical Cos skirt for under $10 at the thrift store–jackpot–but when I got home I noticed it had weird streaks of discolouration on it. They were faint but still apparent. I decided to keep it and plan to wear it soon. Perhaps I’m a softie, but I can’t bear the thought of an otherwise perfectly good skirt sitting unloved in a landfill somewhere just because it had a stain.

Sometimes I go to the laundromat and notice something on my clothes that wasn’t there before. When you wash your clothes in a communal washer you have less control than you like; a reminder that getting dressed every day requires a certain amount of surrender. Ultimately, whatever happens to your clothes, you kind of have to be okay with it. (You kind of just have to roll with it). Ultimately, wearing clothing with stains on them is kind of badass. It screams ‘insouciant ingenue who doesn’t care what others think’--the kind of energy I’m always trying to cultivate. 

Can’t we just use things and try to be happy, not sad when they show the markings of age? 

Earlier this year, I was given a hand-me-down dress from Dusen Dusen, a brand I have loved for a long time but never owned anything by. Accordingly, I was jazzed. But on its maiden (to me) voyage, I bled through the dress so horrifically it left a massive stain that even the dry cleaner couldn’t get out. I’m sad I only got to wear it once in pristine condition, but I still plan to give that dress the love it deserves. Just don’t look too closely at my butt.