For me, the smell of new clothes always reminds me of Christmas. That’s because most of the new clothes I ever received were Christmas gifts. I never felt hard done by this; the alternative was Hand-Me-Downs.

That said, Hand-Me-Downs were simply the norm. Pretty much everyone in my (admittedly limited) social circle wore Hand-Me-Downs. It was expected, accepted, and as far as I know, no one thought much about it. If you outgrew your clothes, you handed them down—patches and all—to younger siblings, cousins, or neighbours.

Yeah, we wore pants and shirts with patches on the knees and elbows. It was extremely common, but I do not have a photo in my personal archives to prove it. When the camera came out back then, we mostly had our good clothes on, so no record of patches, I’m afraid. I can’t even steal one off the web because any search I try for patched clothing turns up only the modern, trendy, pre-ripped and patched jeans the kids pay a premium for these days. I could shake my head and tisk-tisk that, but it’s a fashion, and at least they mostly wear belts with them, so they aren’t hanging down below their butt cheeks. Again, no tisk-tisking at that; it is (was, I hope) a fashion, as well, but this is about the long-ago fashions I grew up with, not the more recent ones that passed me by as an adult.

After I reached my teen years, actual fashion became more important. Limited as we were financially, we did manage to ride the fashion waves as they rolled by, particularly where Paisley Print shirts were involved.

Also in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Nehru jacket became a fad. I did own (and wear) one but, fortunately, there is no photographic evidence of that.

The longest lasting fashions I adopted were jeans and bell-bottoms—jean jackets, flair-legged jeans and cowboy boots were my go-to apparel for many years. I recall wearing the jean jacket as a teenager, and was still in cowboy boots and boot-cut jeans in the early 1980s.

These days, I am too old for fashion. I gravitated to straight-legged jeans in my late 30s to early 40s and generally wear sneakers and standard shirts. Nothing fancy, just good, solid clothing. I’m too old to be a fashion icon.