An old friend

An old friend

By Louise Moracchini, young person and project volunteer

Woven into the thick navy wool of the greatcoat is a web of white thread – mending a spidery tear in its back panel. This tear is a result of decades of war, and a singular shell whose fragments struck the owner of the coat, splitting the fabric.

Preserving this uniform serves as a poignant way to preserve the history it endured. By connecting the stories of clothing, we can mend and transform, both the items we wear and the memories they hold. Fashion is resilient – and the prominent repair in this coat should remind us of its power to endure.

Howard Harris, a cavalryman, lovingly described the coat as an ‘old friend’ - perhaps reflecting on the physical scar in the fabric as a reminder of the battles he fought in. The battle in which the coat was split, the Battle of Inkerman, or otherwise known as the ‘Soldier’s Battle’, killed over 800 allied soldiers and yet Harris emerged with his life. As a soldier in the Crimean War, Harris’ dedication to fixing the coat may have been a point of pride. The coat was with him through the horrors of war, keeping him warm in the cold Crimean winters, only splitting in the most life-threatening of situations. The memories of war followed him, coat in tow, into the pages of Salisbury Times, where he described how they had ‘no bed, no waterproof’ and little provision.

Considering the poor conditions of war, it should stand to reason that Harris kept the coat close, despite no longer needing it in the English climate. It served to him as a spoil of war; the coat had been ripped but Harris survived the shrapnel. Although we may never experience the trauma soldiers like Harris suffered, our clothes and the mends we make to them reflect the same kind of durability in the memories we lend them.

My household is filled with things made of what seem like worthless scraps of fabric - dolls clothes, scrunchies, pin cushions. They were once jeans and tops and jumpers, clothes that I had decided to repurpose to no great success. But by dedicating my time to learning some rudimentary sewing to create something of my own, made from something crafted by someone else, a cycle is formed.

It is a historical pattern that is stitched into our society – we create, inspire, and recreate. In much the same way, it is likely that someone made this greatcoat from a blanket, where war would later inspire a mend, and eventually it was received into the museum collection. Here, we can see how sustainability is not only ingrained into our practical approaches to clothes, but our stories of the past too.

Sustainable fashion must learn from the history of clothing to fully embrace the advantages of technology, to move us on to a more sustainable future. Without these stories, we lose valuable information about ecological fashion practices, and with them the memories that making clothes and wearing them can hold.