It is raining outside, grey, relentless, wet. A day for staying in. On days when I want more brightness, I wear a coat that used to be my mum’s. Floral. Warm. Almost useless.
“Mum, your raincoat lets in a lot of water!” I text her one day when the dog and I arrive home, both equally wet.
“Oh, darling, that’s because it’s a ski jacket,” replies my mum, from London.
“Not a raincoat?”
“No,” she types back. And the story of the jacket emerges.
My mum’s name is Viviana. She grew up in what used to be a small town in Argentina, called Mendoza. Viviana always wanted to travel. Instead of a big party for her 15th birthday, she asked her mum and Francophile stepdad for a trip to Europe.
Viviana is still 14 when she arrived in Switzerland in 1964 and saw the floral jacket in a shop window in a mountain village called Crans-sur-Sierre. It was love at first sight.
Viviana is still 14 when she arrived in Switzerland in 1964 and saw the floral jacket in a shop window in a mountain village called Crans-sur-Sierre. It was love at first sight.
During the day my mum swooshed down ski slopes and heard Swiss-accented French from local boys. At night, Mum and her ski buddies listened to The Beatles. They sang into hairbrushes and drank Coca-Cola. They enjoyed being far from home, working on their French, and having their own style.
“My jacket was always a hit on the slopes,” mum tells me. “It was the first time I bought something myself. When I was 14, you didn’t go into shops by yourself and buy clothes. You went with your mother and then there were these arguments.”
I was born 20 years after my mum bought that coat in London. We have argued about many things over the years: clothes, curfews, cash and more.
As a teen in the 90s and early 2000s, I wanted the clothes that my mother didn’t want me to buy, clothes with logos, underwear with sequins that flirted over your hipsters.
One day, I wore faux leather trousers with a crop top borrowed from a friend. My parents loved the trousers but told me there was no way I was leaving the house showing my stomach.
To be fair, I don’t know that I would’ve been brave enough to wait at a bus stop in a crop top. That was probably the real reason I conceded and put on mum’s floral jacket for the first time. There is a moment, in an argument, when each side sees the other’s point.
Viviana (centre) with friends in Switzerland. Source: Supplied
I realised then that in my mum’s (many) wardrobes there were clothes that no-one else would have. And they were free.
That’s how my love of vintage clothing was born; opening a door and stepping into things my mother used to wear. Wearing an old Missoni skirt of hers with white Nikes, or her 70’s paisley tunic over tight denim.
The floral jacket was always there, and I imagined that I’d wear it busing home from festivals. That didn’t happen; I avoid mud.
At some stage the jacket moves from my parents’ house and it comes with me. It doesn’t get used much and I do not visit my parents much.
“When will you visit?” my mum would text me, while I was busy being broke and trying to figure out life.
When I came home, tired and sometimes broken, my mum would feed me, and my dad would make space for me on the sofa. I would drink tea, chat with my brother, and feel so much better. For me and Mum, hot milky tea is our soul food.
In my 20s I continued to buy vintage clothing and Mum and I would laugh; about things that I wore which she used to have, or things I was buying that looked the same as things as I already had.
"This jacket has endured because it has been cared for. Perhaps that is everyday love; not knowing what will happen but caring relentlessly nevertheless." Source: Supplied
In a megacity like London, an outfit can signal who you are that day. But add a baby and you need durability too. An outfit has less potential with porridge on it.
When I moved to Melbourne five years ago, the clothes that came with me had more stories than impact.
Move countries and take something of your mother’s, and you realise that you have taken many things with it.
I have this jacket of my mother’s. It is useless in the rain, but it is warm, and Latin people love warmth. It is bright and relentless. It makes each day better, like my mum.
I have this jacket of my mother’s. It is useless in the rain, but it is warm, and Latin people love warmth. It is bright and relentless. It makes each day better, like my mum.
This floral jacket has lasted nearly 60 years. It is cheerily unique: the only flower-power ski jacket from Switzerland to Argentina, from London to Melbourne. Maybe it doesn’t even look that great, it’s just loved.
This jacket has endured because it has been cared for. Perhaps that is everyday love; not knowing what will happen but caring relentlessly nevertheless.
The colours on the flowers are still sharp and, sometimes, Mum and I have our own sharp edges. We have said things first, then regretted them later. We are very different, yet similar women. But our bonds have endured, and it has paid off.
Fernanda is a Melbourne-based freelance writer.
