be so fr: do you still have clothing from your ex?
How long do you hold onto clothing from an ex? A couple days, a few months, a year? Based on a survey we did on Instagram earlier this week, the results are mixed, to say the least, with 22% of you ditching items immediately, 27% after a few weeks, 20% after a year, and a whopping 30% never.
That nostalgic 30% of you are the target audience for Tinder’s ExCycle campaign, a social-experiment-turned-art-gallery where Tinder tasked designer Sami Miró with transforming items from five people’s exes into entirely new garments.
I (hi, it’s Mi-Anne!) was lucky enough to be one of those lucky five, alongside fashion editor Jasmine Fox-Suliaman, stylist Mel'Reneé Leamon, chef Christiano Wennmann, and DJ Miss Lilly.
“All clothing has energy,” said fashion editor Jasmine Fox-Suliaman. “I bought this oversized men’s shirt [for my ex] that he could keep at my apartment because I wanted him to feel comfortable, and like it was his space, too.” Fox-Suliaman held onto that button down for almost two years before handing it over to Miró to work her magic. “[Sami] chopped it up with a dress I had gotten for a trip we had planned together.” Fox-Suliaman added. “It was just so sad. I wasn’t going to put it on but I wasn’t going to get rid of it.”
It ended up becoming a blouse reminiscent of Margiela’s deconstructed button downs. “We often think of our ex’s clothing to be quite literal, where it’s like ‘oh, it’s his jeans and T-shirt.’ But it’s [more than that]. It could be the thing you wore on the first date.”
Christiano Wennman brought two jackets and one sweater for Miró to upcycle, one of which was a gift from his ex and the other two were pieces they had bought together throughout their relationship. None of these items are things he still wears. But it seems like he may be in the minority based on our survey, with 46% of those who still have their ex’s clothing saying they still wear those items occasionally.
Fox-Suliaman is split: “I mean, look, if your ex got you some Margiela, you can’t get rid of that. You just can’t,” she said. “If someone wants to wear a piece their ex gave them it’s more about doing the emotional work to find a way to reinvent that piece and reclaim the aspects of what that piece means to them.” The latter is exactly what Miró did.
Throughout the month-long process of working on Tinder ExCycle, Miró transformed suits into trenchcoats, jackets into boleros, and jeans into skirts. “I’ve always loved vintage clothing and I love reimagining what it was doing before it got to me,” Miró told mixed feelings. “This was fun because I got to actually know exactly what each piece had been through emotionally before we started working on it.”
Miró hopes to turn this into a series one day, but if you don’t have access to an upcycle designer in your life your ex’s clothing doesn’t have to wind up in the landfill. If you have a t-shirt or button-down collecting dust on a shelf or a hanger, consider taking it to your tailor for a new crop or trim — give it the new life and meaning it deserves.
Or, as someone on Instagram wrote in response to our survey, there’s always a third option for clothing from the past: “Sell, baby, sell.”