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I STILL WEAR IT;
it’s perfect for a certain winter day. I think it’s early ’60s. When my
mother died I wanted her clothes. My sister thought it was creepy, so I
took loads of them. I’d just had a baby, and so I enveloped myself in
her clothes because they had her smell and her energy. I now love seeing
my daughters wear them. When my father died we discovered he’d had a
secret Swiss bank account. In England in the ’50s and ’60s there were a
lot of austerity measures, but my mother continued to be a complete
fashion maven and had the most exquisite designer pieces. When we looked
at the check stubs we saw that the checks had all been made out to
Bergdorf Goodman. He’d used his Swiss bank account purely to finance my
mother’s clothing habit. Jane Wells, 55
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AS A HIGH SCHOOL
student, I used to go to the Hungarian Pastry Shop at 111th Street near
Columbia University and sit among college and graduate students while
wearing my mom’s college sweatshirt. It was like the equivalent of
wearing your mother’s too-big heels, but dressing up in the costume of
an older intellectual. I wear it now on weekends when I’m getting coffee
and going grocery shopping for the week. Audrey Gelman, 26
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I PLAY TENNIS
in this skirt all summer long. My mother wore it before she had me and
after she had me, and she’d play in it. She loves tennis, and I love
tennis because of her. She got me into it. I was forced to take many
lessons and I didn’t appreciate them at the time but now we can play
together, occasionally. We don’t enough. I still have this vision of my
mom in the skirt — tennis was part of her social scene, she played with a
bunch of her girlfriends from our community and schools and temples and
there was a group at the country club. I enjoyed seeing her be so
athletic. Carlyn Schlechter, 39
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IT’S A LATE ’60S BAG.
She gave it to me when I was about 22. If I consider buying another
black bag I compare it with this one and realize I don’t need one. She
was careful about her things, so they are in good condition. Besides the
fact that she was a deeply stylish person, she was a single mother and
didn’t care for the conformity of Boston. We would go to preppy stores,
and I’d ask her: “Don’t you want these espadrilles? Don’t you want a
belt with whales on it?” because I’d see them on other mothers. She just
told me, “I will never dress like that.” Sheila O’Shea, 38
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MY MOTHER, DOROTHY
Duncan, was given the kilt by her grandmother. It is a “Duncan Ancient”
tartan. I think it was made by a kilt maker in Perth, Scotland. My
mother was very proud of her Duncan heritage, though she didn’t talk
about it much. She gave me the kilt around 1988, and I had it made into a
jacket three years ago. Kilts are not my style so I changed it so I
would use it more often. I think of my mother when I wear it. Louise McCagg, 77
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I THINK I GOT
to have it once she’d worn it enough times that she was going to be
busted showing up in it someplace else. I was in my early 20s. My mother
knew I loved it. Our dressing style is really different in all ways
except formally. Stylistically, where we bonded was her party clothes.
This was the only dress I wound up with, mostly because she’s so
unsentimental about stuff. It’s more an attitude I inherited from her.
My daughter hasn’t seen the dress yet. It’s right up her alley. Brooke Williams, 48
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THIS IS A LITTLE TOP
of my mom’s. It’s so magnificent. My mom and dad lived in Israel where
my dad was studying marine biology, and this shirt was my mom’s. I was
conceived in Israel, and so my mom wore this at the beginning of her
pregnancy with me, and then she gave it to me. It’s hand-crocheted. It’s
gorgeous. She bought it in Jerusalem somewhere. I still wear it all the
time, you know, with high-waisted jeans. Gaby Basora, 42
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OUR FAMILY MOVED
to Indiana when I was 7, but before that my mom had only ever lived in
the South, so cold weather seemed really alien and dangerous to her,
especially as the mother of young kids. She used to dress us in full
snowsuits just to go to the grocery store. My parents recently moved to
Florida, and now every time my mom visits me in New York she brings one
of her winter hats to accidentally leave at my apartment. She does this
regardless of the season. Mary Mann, 29
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I HAVE A PHOTO
of my mother wearing this coat, and she’s mugging for the camera
wearing dark glasses and it’s so unlike any pose I’ve ever seen her in.
Impish. Badass. In all other photos she’s posing like a nice classic
Italian lady. It was handmade for her by her seamstress, who’d go up to
Paris twice a year to buy fabric and see what was new and then go back
to Padua, where she’d make these clothes for my mother. I wear it with
jeans, which would either delight or horrify her. Pavia Rosati, 43
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