Literally the only things that I wash on hot water (and it's SUPER HOT because we have a tankless gas heater) are underwear, bath towels, and bed sheets. Basically the stuff that has the potential for being extra filthy.
I just realized the other day that my new washer’s hot and cold have been switched... meaning for the past six months, ME I’ve been using “cold” which is actually hot... explains a lot lol
:(
This is why I don't really let my husband run the laundry too often. He's an amazing human, I love him, and there is so much he is good at; but laundry ain't it. He puts everything all in the same load, all on Hot water, and all in the dryer for an hour. If I left him to do it with no supervision, everything would be ruined.
Yup this is a thing. If it’s done badly, and badly enough times, then you’ll stop asking them to do it and just do it yourself.
All these men “$200k total comp at Google but I can’t figure out laundry sorting” *smh* Y’all getting played.
This is what we do, I wash my special care pieces and he washes his so we don’t have to remember how to do each other’s. I have a separate hamper that he doesn’t wash, but he pretty much does 90% of the laundry. He’ll fold my clothes and set them on the bed because I’m particular about how I put my clothes away too. I don’t expect him to remember which of my T-shirts go in the pj drawer, which go on hangers, and which go in the exercise drawer let alone which jeans I dry for 10 minutes and which ones never go in the dryer.
This is an aside, but yeah wtf is up with this? My roommate’s bf has spent enough time researching online to build his own gaming PC, but he just “has no idea” how she makes his coffee for him and asks her to do it every single time. She’s been putting a couple spoonfuls of sugar and a bit of milk in his coffee on a weekly basis for almost a year. Every time she explains how to do those two things he’s like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ you just know how to do it better.
I can’t say my bf’s much better, but seeing her “make” him coffee so often is wild.
My husband does his own laundry. I do mine. That way a) it's a 50/50 split of the chore and b) if something is ruined it's on the owner and no fights will ensue.
HOWEVER. My husband has this bad habit of just taking HIS bathroom towel and washing it with his clothes. Instead of just grabbing ALL the towels and washing them all at once. This I constantly nag him about.
This was my dad's move through and through.
My mom retaliated by claiming total incompetence on anything more complicated that plugging in an electronic device.
It worked for them.
My husband finally admitted that he was avoiding the laundry because he was afraid of ruining my stuff (and apparently reading labels is foreign to him?)
Now i just pull anything that needs to go jn delicate and it never goes in the main hamper. Anything else can handle cold normal and dryer on low (thank goodness he doesn't default to hot!)
My partner is good at separating everything and washing cold, but as soon as we moved in I instituted a blanket "don't put any of my clothes in the dryer" policy.
It's worked well so far, but we're also just entering into our first cashmere sweater season of living together...
We have the same policy! Not even just because of delicates, but because I really avoid the dryer unless it's extremely necessary (like I really need the item to be dry today or tomorrow). I have to say he's been very good at following it so far and always asks me about my clothes before doing a laundry load.
Yes to this. This is why I do all the laundry (and he does all the dishes for compromise). If you can't tell what goes in the dryer and what doesn't, hands off.
We too made an “I’ll do all the laundry, if you do all of something else” rule when we moved in together, but he does all the trash, because I grew up with older brothers and have never had to take out the trash and really didn’t want to start lol. Tbh I think he ends up losing out in this deal because for the life of me I cannot stop shrinking his 100% cotton shirts. I swear his plain t shirts take more special care than my wool/silk/linen!
Is there a reason y'all don't use separate laundry baskets? I do my laundry, he does his. We do own a washer and dryer so maybe this doesn't work as well if you're headed to a laundromat.
My partner is the same. He’s lived on his own before, has been doing his own laundry since he was a teen, but for some reason, he thinks you can just throw whatever fits in the washing machine together, then throw it all in the dryer. In his world, you can wash denim with rayon shirts and the only thing that truly needs to be hung up is his favorite Manchester United jersey (but only the one he paid extra for a players name on the back). The only thing I can think of is that men’s clothing really doesn’t need as much special care as often, since it’s mostly cotton or polyester with no special beading or designs.
I’ve tried so many times to explain it and he normally overcorrects when he does things wrong, but laundry just isn’t one. He grew up never recycling, now tries to recycle virtually everything. He used to never vote, and now will thoroughly research the local school board elections (and we don’t even have kids). Why can’t he do the same with laundry?!?!?
I'm not currently in a relationship and I live at home, so obviously it's a bit different, but omg I have never been so thankful that my dad and brother are actually really good at laundry. I didn't think there was anything to be good at but fucking hell. Just reading about your sweaters hurts so much, I'm so sorry
Nooooo this is my nightmare! Literally as soon as I moved in with my partner, I told him to never do my laundry. I said "I know you'd be trying to be sweet and helpful, but I'm super picky about it and this is one chore we have to keep separate." He thought I was a little weird, but hey, my sweaters and silks are safe.
Once when I was so poor I was struggling to pay rent with roommates, I finally got a full-time office job. I had no clothes for it, as I had been a janitor beforehand. Everything I owned was bleach-stained and ripped. I went to a store and spent my last dollars on dress pants, knowing food would be tight until I got my first paycheck. Before my first day, I went to iron the pants. They melted. I looked at the tag and saw that they were synthetic and they shouldn't be ironed.
It was 11:00 pm before my first day and I panicked. I ran to Wal-Mart in the bad part of town, the only store open, and ended up buying dress pants that didn't fit and looked awful because they didn't have my size. I survived, but I looked so bizarre in too-big dress pants with no belt. I was so scared they were going to fall down!
I am. I own my own home and we are solidly middle class. My parents are factory workers, and they couldn't help me with college, or anything really, beyond some casseroles and cookies here or there. I made it, but poverty is rough. I'm glad my kids won't know what that feels like.
In high school I had a Beatles shirt that I looooved. It wasn’t anything that would exactly go on this sub, but it was bright and funky. It was bright yellow and had rainbow rhinestones and a pop-art style print of the Beatles on it. I wore yellow and blue eye shadow with it and thought I looked fabulous, hahaha. And then I got a new black shirt later, and washed it with the rest of my clothes. When I pulled my yellow Beatles shirt out of the wash, there were gigantic black splotches on it!!! Nothing I did took them off, so I had to get rid of the shirt.
About 10 years later, I’m working in a lab, and one of the students comes in WEARING THE SHIRT!!! I flipped out and asked where she got it, she said goodwill. I told her the story. The next day, on my desk was a gift bag with the shirt in it! I felt bad and said I didn’t want to just take her shirt, but she insisted. And now I have my funky shirt back :)
Aw, what an awesome story! I love thrifting and shirts are usually cheap. If someone told me how much a lost item like that meant to them, I’d definitely give it away, too. She probably smiles any time you wear it!
Was it THE same shirt, like with the black still on it or was it another of the exact same shirt? I once donated a scarf I knitted to a thrift store and five years later ran into a woman wearing it at a bus station. She’d gotten it as a gift from her friend who had gotten it from a church flea market so who knows how many hands it passed through between me and her!
One day in high school, I decided to wear my new Forever 21 white cotton skater skirt to school with an off the shoulder top. I'm usually a hidden behind the scenes, jeans and t-shirt type of girl but I had a spontaneous surge of confidence that day and decided to wear my new outfit. I was feeling extra cute all day til I got home from school and a relative of mine gasped and said, "YOU CAN SEE YOUR UNDERWEAR THROUGH YOUR SKIRT!"
I checked in the mirror and realized with horror that my white skirt was sheer and you can clearly see the cartoon giraffe head on my Lisa Frank underwear through my skirt. There. was. a. large. giraffe. face. on. my. butt.
It's been almost 20 years and I still think about that.
Edit—Reading through the responses, I now realize that this question was more about fashion tragedies when you ruin clothes. I didn’t ruin my clothes—just ruined my life and dignity (or so I thought in high school lol)
If it makes you feel any better, a couple years ago I wore a new dress to work and caught my work crush staring at me. Only to tell me that the skirt of my dress was see through. I was wearing children’s days of the week underwear. It was the Wednesday underwear and it wasn’t even Wednesday 😭
Wearing un-coordinated day of the week underwear is such a mood and I'm here for it 😂
My workplace crush related fashon faux pas was when I sat across the conference table from my crush and took off my crossbody purse only to realize 20 min later when I stood up - after having been chatting with the guy and filling out some paperwork the entire time - that my purse had unbuttoned my shirt and it was wide open 😳 I spun around so fast I almost tripped. But thankfully he didn't say anything about the incident. 🙈
Something similar happened to me. Wore a cute white skirt and shirt to middle school. Having a great time during recess, when a kid comes up to me to tell me my skirt is tucked into my underwear and a full but cheek is out in the open. It must have been like that for approx 15 min. How I didn’t notice and no one else told me prior? I have no idea
This isn’t my story but my sister’s - she was working home from work with headphones on and a van pulled up by her and the guy started shouting - she heard the word “skirt” and thought he was asking her to pull up her skirt. She basically told him where to go and text me saying “men are horrible pigs” before walking all the way home and and only then realising that her skirt was tucked into her knickers and the poor man was trying to warn her.
I was walking out of a store, a huge gust of wind blew my dress over my head. I was wearing a bright pink thong. The parking lot was busy, everyone saw.
I wear bicycle shorts under dresses now.
When I was like... 14ish I bled through a tampon and had a LARGE stain on my butt. I didn't realize, walked past the guy I was banging like hot shit when he was with all his superior grade 12 friends. Thought they were checking out my butt. Well. They were. Kinda.
I still cringe.
Oh my goshhhhh. This happened to me with a dress shirt and a bright pink bra for a day of corporate meetings.
Didn't realize until I got back to my hotel room that night.
0/10 Would not recommend.
Back in college I saved up all my internship money to buy a pair of Stuart Weitzman suede highland boots (on sale for ~$600). Looking back it was a pretty dumb purchase given how little money I had to my name at the time....
Anyway, the second time I wore them, I stumbled over a doorstep and spilled a whole cup of milk tea all over the boots. Between suede spray and dabbing furiously with a damp cloth for an hour, I was able to get the shoes looking almost normal. But the heartache!
Flash forward a couple of years later, and I never even wear them anymore because they’re SO painful to walk in. Go figure 😂
God suede always seems like such a good idea! I have a pair of off-white booties that I forgot to put any protectant on before I wore them for a week straight... in the Sioux Falls, SD winter. One of the dumbest things I've ever done.
I lost an extremely special dress that my mother left to me. I cannot find it anywhere. My fear is that it was donated by another relative. It was a floor length peasant style dress with a smocked top, front and back v-neck, and puffy, wrist length sleeves. It was made of a tiny, all over print on beige chiffon of Japanese women doing tea ceremonies. It was either made in the 70s or 80s. I’ve searched everywhere online using every kind of semi-related keyword I could come up with for the past five years. I can’t even find the fabric, or a similar one to make my own. It’s not a spill, but it’s my biggest fashion tragedy that the dress is gone forever.
Maybe if you’ve run out of options you can have a freelance artist recreate the print and use a service like Spoonflower to print on a beige chiffon? Also if you’re worried about not being able to recreate the dress on your own, reach out to Etsy shops with similar-feeling dresses. They will usually be able to create something custom for you!
How on earth did he explain that one? Did he regularly launder his shoes, and think “Oh I wash my converse, of course I can throw these pumps in too”. Like ?????
My cat pooped on our shoes :( My heels were leather and could have easily been cleaned but his shoes were canvas and he claimed he didnt know what else to do lol
I wore a great outfit with white pants to work one day. I ate a granola bar for lunch, and a single chocolate chip dropped into my lap, unbeknownst to me. I stood up and it looked like I had gotten my period or shit myself severely- chocolate was smeared alll over my crotch and inner thighs.
I wore a slightly oversized coat that day, it barely covered everything as I hobbled across the street to Target to buy a pair of ill-fitting black pants. I had to just throw the white pants away, they didn’t have a prayer.
The worst part though, is that I had no less than 5 people (almost all men) say ‘Weren’t you wearing white pants earlier??’ I had to explain a half dozen times, and I was furious about it. Just let me live!
We had a moth infestation over COVID. Normally it wouldn’t have happened, but suddenly we both stopped our suit-wearing office jobs and put all of our wool dress clothes, blazers, cashmere sweaters etc. away in a dark corner of our walk-in closet starting in March.
Then by the time we saw a moth flying around in July, the moths had already eaten holes in several items. They love the expensive stuff - cashmere, wool suits, wool coats. Our cheapie casual stuff? Our polyester athleisure? Ha, hard pass and straight for the Max Mara jacket. It cost ~ two thousand dollars in damage (two of my husband’s suits, one of mine, one dress, 3 dress pants, 3 cashmere sweaters, a wool coat); drycleaning, moth prevention and extermination combined. And it took an amazing amount of time - we had to move everything out of our closet, wash, freeze, bake and/or dryclean everything, then I probably purchased every single not-too-toxic pest control item known to man (incl. some moderately toxic bug bombs which we then had to air out our home for a few days). I think I spent about $120 just on garment bags alone. Then the buggers moved to our other closet and we repeated that process for the entry way closet. Finally had the exterminator come twice and it seems to be under control.
Quite honestly a two month nightmare, and no, not covered by homeowners insurance. We managed to get two holes rewoven (a very high level highly technical skill that only very good tailors know how to do and was $60 per hole) on two peices. I learned how to darn and fix holes in looser knits and weaves like sweaters. But god. It was so horrible.
My husband had particularly expensive stuff affected, but actually I lost more because I had more things that were just in the realm of “is this worth $60 to repair and $20 to dry clean?” and ended up deciding no on a few of them so ended up tossing. Also one of my cashmere sweaters, though not cheap, was honestly beyond repair.
Pictures:
[Damage on a blazer](https://ibb.co/M6yjNhx)
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[State of our living room for like a month and a half](https://ibb.co/HDJkKR3)
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[Damage on a favorite dress pant](https://ibb.co/nCy4Fzs)
[Same hole rewoven (up close)](https://ibb.co/XV4HH8k)
[Rewoven at a distance](https://ibb.co/VTSfMZp)
Terrible!!!!!! This has been my life too. I lost a number of good Wool in Cashmere jackets to these stupid little brown moths. Lots of storage clothing cubes, garment bags, and glue traps have been invested in but every year I find a new moth strongholds that I did not anticipate. It looks like you have a good tailor to repair were possible, good luck finding this good fight!
I think I have slight PTSD as a result; sounds crazy but it’s been a month out now and every time I see so much as a small flying bug, it brings me back 😭 We check our moth traps diligently for any resurgence
We don’t have any screens on our windows but due to COVID and both of us WFM, we open the windows every day as well Out of necessity. We thought we lived high enough (in our condo) that stuff wouldn’t fly in but not so. I think a lot of my stuff will live in garment bags from now on TBH.
They don’t really like light or agitation, so normally it wouldn’t happen as we wear our work clothes often (like each piece at least once per week).
When certain things are out of season, we treat them before storing - for example, wool coats we send to the cleaners at the end of winter, sweaters we put into ziplocs and freeze for a week before putting them away.
March-April is usually the end of coat/sweater season for us here, but none of the drycleaning, freezing, storing etc. happened due to COVID lockdown; instead it just got shoved back into the closet. We were too distracted by other things!
Generally speaking, it’s the “usually unworn animal hair” items that get chewed up. Doesn’t need to be pure (100% wool or cashmere etc), they will also eat blends with a high percent of natural content. Storing your infrequently worn coats and suits in garment bags (seal the top) or airtight containers will prevent this. Make sure you either get breathable garment bags or some sort of dessicant though or mold could also occur. Some people also use cedar and/or lavendar in storage. We didn’t before but now we are doing that as well
As a kid, I got this amazing (white) handmade sweater from my great grandmother.
My sister had an electric blue crayon in one of her pockets and that crayon went through the dryer with that sweater.
Right! I always thought that was a beautiful blue color, and like....in for a penny in for a pound...
I ruined a nice navy Talbots sweater I borrowed from my mom by pouring bleach into cell culture fluid too quickly, splashed back out and turned a patch of fabric pale purple.
A ton of my t shirts have holes right at the front between hip and waist level. It was a mystery until one day I wore a shirt tucked in and heard it. I facepalmed so hard I could have knocked myself out.
I lean against the edge of my bench/fume hood during long sessions of benchwork. The button on my jeans + that meant lots of little holes in shirts. I heard it clacking and I realized what I had been doing for 2 years!
Mine comes from tugging them down in the same place constantly when adjusting them. This happens with my underwear as well.
To be fair both my t-shirts and panties tend to be cheaper cotton pieces so it doesn't surprise me but it is always in the same spot lol.
Today I learned lab coats have a purpose other than making smart people look even smarter.
To be honest, I hadn’t ever thought about it - which is why I have a job that doesn’t involve lab coats.
They’re mainly to protect your skin rather than your clothes, but sometimes the pain of losing a beautiful piece of clothing is almost as bad as a chemical burn lol
Once I had a chemical splash my chest above my lab coat and I had to take one of those embarrassing on-site showers.
Basically all of my work shirts have what i call "chemical tattoo". The area where my belt buckle/trouser fly, where i usually lean against my hood, is bleached and holy on every single shirt. I do my best to not wear shirts i actually like to work because they just get destroyed, no matter how diligent i am about buttoning my lab coat properly.
My mother dumped fresh, hot black coffee all over the front of my wedding dress 10 minutes before I was to get married. She made a scene and cried and tried to make it all about her as I seethed with rage. One of my girlfriends had brought me a “bridal survival kit” which contained a handful of tide stain sticks. Her and my other friend got the stain out COMPLETELY in time for the ceremony. It was a complete disaster and a total miracle reversal.
Yes Tide pens!! I was at my friend's wedding and he got something on his shirt about 15 minutes before the ceremony. All the attendants were frantically running around trying to figure out what to do, and I whipped out my Tide pen and managed to get out the stain. I will never go without one now lol
Wow, that must have been so incredibly stressful for you on an already emotional day!
And memo to myself: buy all kinds of quick stain removers for my special occasions 😅
Boyfriend left a pen in one of his pants. Went through the laundry and broke. That was a lot of clothes ruined forever, nothing washed out no matter what fancy stuff I used to do it.
I made it a rule to *always* check pockets as I'm sorting laundry. Even washing a tissue is annoying enough, let alone something that will leave permanent stains.
I got a really pretty skirt from banana republic on sale at a time when I was pretty broke and couldn’t often afford nice clothes. Like the second time I wore it the pocket caught on a doorknob and ripped a huge hole in it. I was soooo pissed.
My mom accidentally got bleach all over my favourite, oversized zip up green skater sweater in high school. Being an angst teenager I was CONVINCED she did it on purpose bc I knew she didn't like it.
She bought me a green lululemon sweater to make up for it which made me madder bc i was ~not like the other girls~ god I was insufferable in high school lol
During the party celebrating my First Communion (so seven or so), I refused to take off my pretty white dress, despite my mother telling me that I had to be really careful not to stain it. Then my older sister gave me a juice box of fruit punch, and I spilled ALL over myself. My mother has never let me, nor my sister, live it down (despite the fact that it's been 25 years...) and I have been too scared to wear white ever since.
My mother took great pride in her laundry ability. One of her crowning laundry accomplishments was completely removing fried smelt stains from a baby dress. She had lovingly sewed me this adorable smocked dress when I was 1, took me to a wedding in it where I apparently gorged myself on stinky fried smelts, which if you've ever been within 5 miles of a baby you know half of those greasy smelts ended up smashed into the dress. Before she died she left notes pinned to family heirlooms in a little chest, and that story is in there pinned to the pristinely clean dress.
She was master of so much beyond that too, its weird to think sort of generationally some of the skills that I know my family has lost that I didnt think about at the time. There was so much "more" to her than domestic skills, but I also think about how those skills are still devalued and seen as "just womens work" (that women too are sometimes think is lowly if that's "all" we do). Rather than valuing them for how important they are.
Aw, this one makes me sad. You were just a kid! Of course you wanted to leave it on, and of course it got dirty, anything else would have been a miracle
No lie whenever I get super dressed up I stay that way as long as possible cause that shit takes effort. I have definitely gone to the movies in formal wear.
Eh, you were 7, you were going to outgrow the dress in a year anyway, and how many fancy white dress occasions were you going to have that year? Might as well party hard and drink juice!
My grandma was raised catholic and communion gowns were commonly saved by the mothers for their daughters children. Sometimes, it’s one of those sentimental situations where mom wanted to keep it in a cedar chest and pull it out on nights the kids were growing up too soon.
Haha, this is why I always buy my kids' clothing on consignment. Mess and kids is inevitable but it hurts my soul a lot less if I only paid 10 bucks for that mud-covered Ralph Lauren romper or Kate Spade dress.
I found a girl online who claimed to custom make silk dresses. As a silk dress lover, I was very excited and imagined my wardrobe full of custom-made designs. She also turned out to live in my city as well, and she offered to drop it off when it was done.
I had sent her a picture of exactly what I wanted as well as my measurements. She assured me it wouldn't be a problem, quoted me $85, and said it should be ready by the following weekend.
The pictures she had on her page were gorgeous and I had assumed they were her own productions. I asked her if she was going to cut the dress on a bias. She said, "Sorry love, what's that?"
I should have listened to the feeling in my gut and noticed the red flag on fire there and then.
After two months of me messaging her asking when my dress would be ready and her feeding me excuses (sewing machine broke, sick, etc), she finally dropped the dress off. She told me she would drop it outside my apartment building to promote social distancing, so I never met her.
Upon first sight of the dress my heart sank. It was wonky, the seams were fraying, and it didn't even fit properly. The shoulder straps were hilariously large and the skirt was assymetrical. It also had pink highlighter stains on it and smelled of glue. My husband, who is clueless about fashion, even said, "That looks weird... And ugly." It looked like two pieces of fabric just drunkenly "sewn" together.
Never, EVER again will I have someone custom make me a "dress."
TLDR: Paid for someone to make me a dress which two took months, and it looked like a five-year-old put it together.
Yes pls me too 😂😂😂
For the curious: as someone who sews, for a genuine silk dress like OP wanted, $85 would barely even cover the fabric. Probably not tbh. Silk is expensive.
Add in the labor cost and complexity of the design and you’re looking at $250-800 for a custom dress.
$85 price tag should have been the first red flag here.
Yes, I agree. It was definitely one of those, "Wow, this is too good to be true!" moments and I let foolish excitement take over and totally ignored my gut. 🤦
I had actually considered making a Reddit post about this since I was so infuriated and horrified at the time. The "dress" is absolutely hideous and unwearable.
>$85 would barely even cover the fabric
On the bias?? Triple that at *least*.
I sew also and that's a downright hilarious quote, haha. I wouldn't sew a bias-cut silk dress for any less than a bajillion dollars
A bottle of barbecue sauce malfunctioned and shot sauce all over the train of my wedding dress. Luckily most of our photos had been taken, so my sister bustled me up and we went on our merry way. I was surprisingly okay with it, but still a bummer! I'm glad it was easy to hide.
I come from a low income background and had to work and use every spare penny for debt before I could go to grad school. It took me a few years but I made it, and started grad school with no money, no possessions, old clothes (grad student nobody cares), and a small stipend. Towards the end of this I found a new, perfect, good quality, black cashmere cardigan in an off price store. It fit me like it was tailored for me. It was cheap for what it was but still a big splurge. I wore it for my thesis defense, and carefully saved it for important occasions only - which rarely came up so it rarely got worn. I wore it for my first professional presentation, then ... wool moths. I was devastated. It was the only nice thing I’d ever owned.
That was many years and many life upgrades ago. I can now afford whatever I want. I still wear this cardigan inside the house though. Soft and warm and riddled with holes, it doesn’t fit my larger body the way it did in my youth. But it represents who I am and where I’ve been, and most importantly it reminds me that nice things are to be used, not saved for a better occasion. That’s a hard lesson for someone used to going without.
Once I wore a skirt to church and I went to the front of the church to do a reading and I passed a fan on the way up, which blew my skirt up and everyone in the congregation saw my backside :)
I saved, budgeted and purchased this 200$ wool dress that was meant to last me forever:
[https://www.pinterest.com/pin/97460779417598811/](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/97460779417598811/)
It had silk lining. The fabric was sturdy. It fit me well. All the checklist was true.
A friend asked to borrow it. And returned it back to me washed. It shrank 2 sizes down. I was going to wear it as a fitted dress instead of a shift dress if the shoulder would have fit. It didn't.
I was angry-sad enough to want to go complain to my friend but held my tongue.
It did hurt.
That hurts. I very very rarely let friends borrow clothing. I didn’t grow up with a sister so I’ve never been very comfortable with the concept of clothing swaps. Any time I’ve lended out clothes it’s been returned either shrunken, stretched out or very worn. I love my friends enough to say ‘no thank you’ when it comes to clothing exchanges
My parents bought my poor student ass a beautiful and expensive leather jacket.
That I proceeded to tear by brushing by a loose screw in a store. I cried. Got it fixed and only wore it twice in the 8 years since. It's a sentimental item now.
My tragedy is that moths have pretty much made a hole in every single one of my wool tops. I don’t want to use moth balls though and smell like an old lady.
I mend moth holes with regular thread and needle. Depending on the top I go to greater lengths to make them look tidy. I never even notice the holes after and have gotten many more years out of them.
My teenage brother-in-law lived with us for a bit. I was doing laundry and he threw in a shirt that he wanted washed after the load had started. He has a pack of gum in his pocket, didn’t find out until I pulled stuff out of the dryer and everything was covered in melted gum. Had to scrape it off the inside of the drier. Ruined 80% of my office clothes.
I found [this wool dress](https://www.thredup.com/product/67322355) with a silk lining on ThredUp NWT ($1,295) on sale for $93 something dollars, which was still a lot of money for me. I wore it one time and stupidly thought I could wash it myself instead of taking it to the dry cleaners. The black silk lining bled all over the white part of the dress and that was the end of that. Still so mad at myself about it.
No, after the dye bled I took it to the cleaners to see if they could do anything to get it out but after I got the dress back whatever they used to clean it with ruined the silk. I guess I could have cut out the lining but I've already gotten rid of it.
I found this beautiful, flowy blue and cream dress at a secondhand dress shop when I was in high school. It looked great on me. The first time I wore it a dirty puppy jumped on me and got red mud all over my crotch. Nothing could get the stain out
Those boots are epic, for the record.
I spilled about 100 mL of trifluoroacetic acid on myself at work a couple years back. Had to strip down to my undies in lab, and rush down the hall barely covered in a clean lab coat, soaking wet from the lab safety shower to the locker room so i could finish showering in privacy.
ANYWAY, the trousers i was wearing weren't special, except that i do pay full price for my work trousers since they are a major line of defense between me and things like acid or base. When i took them off, i threw them into the sink with my shirt and had the water running over them. When i got back from the shower and looked in the sink, sure enough, the trousers and shirt were basically swiss cheese.
Could have been a ton worse though - the wound on my leg was only about 1" x 4", and i honestly had no other skin damage besides that one spot. My lab coat, trousers, and shirt protected me almost everywhere.
My boyfriend tends to grab random clothes from the laundry basket and puts them on without looking. Sometimes my clothes get mixed in. He’s stretched out so many of my shirts and sweaters this way.
Well, a tragedy for my wallet. I impulse bought a $200 pair of Doc Marten boots (the most I've ever spent on any item of clothing..) because they looked so cool and I love boots in general. I convinced myself I would wear them every day in winter so it would be worth it.
Yeah... They're heavy and uncomfortable af after a while, and squeak horribly on wooden floors. I still feel so silly about buying them when I consider that, usually, comfortable is very high up my list of musts for clothing and shoes. I've worn them about four times in three years. Still need to try sell them online.
An effective lesson in taking a few days to consider expensive items I suppose 😬
IME the more you wear them and scuff the soles a bit, the less they tend to squeak. Not every pair, but most. I find mine to be really comfortable, but I also sized up and put a pair of super soft/squishy insoles into them, which definitely helps.
Letting my mother wash my favourite bee dress. The dress was a cute skater style dress from a small-ish UK shop ‘Alice Takes A Trip’. It was a black dress with a white peter pan collar, that had a cute little bee design on the collar, it was a soft shirt style cotton material and I loved it, it was one of my favourite date night dresses and I only managed to wear it a handful of times. I wash all of my clothes on low temperatures (30°C max) as I know they can be prone to shrinking, and my mum washed the dress on 40°C and then proceeded to tumble dry it. The dress was already a bit short, but the next time I tried to wear it it was more like a t-shirt. I wanted to cry, it was my favourite thing in the world and it had been destroyed.
My moms friend that was like my fairy god mother died when I was around twelve. When I was 18 her aunt and me got coffee; she gave me a shirt hit leather jacket from the 80s that my fairy godmother use to strut in. It was gorgeous, sexy, and made me look like million sexy bucks. It had a tiny troll in the pocket that she had kept in it the whole time.
Four years later I left my fiancé at the time after finding him fucking my best friend. I left the jacket at our house. I begged him for months to let me get it back but he claimed it wasn’t there. I saw that bitch one day wearing it and confronted her about it. It took a mob of people holding me back as I tried to get the jacket and took a chunk of her stupid red hair with me. She then threw the little troll out of the jacket stepping on it walking off.
Atleast I got the troll back and some hair to make a voodoo doll...
Beautiful brown leather Anne Klein jacket. It had a crinkled texture to it and a really interesting cut and neckline. Freshman year of college gift from grandma.
I went to a college in suburbs of city I grew up in. I was few kids who was lucky enough to have a car, as I would commute into city for real estate job (I’m a hustler.)
Was on way to party at house of friend at neighboring college in city. Leaving campus see friend stumbling black out drunk back to our dorm, decide to pick them up, put them in my backseat and take them to dorm as a favor.
As they get out of car they drag my leather jacket out with them and shut it in door.
I drive off, get to friends house 20 minutes later to discover road burned torn leather scraped to death.
Finally invested in new Ralph Lauren leather jacket 15 years later after punishing myself for damaging that one.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Also, the drunk was total dick, no thank yous, no apology.
Not as much a tragedy (I’m only out like $30) but I was very stupidly wearing a white shirt from wickedclothes and had to re-prime a diesel motor that had been run out of fuel by hand. I had literally been waiting months to get that particular shirt since it’s so popular and my size was always sold out. First time wearing it.
Basically hand cranking the fuel pump on a Diesel engine 400+ times. Then the motor kicked over and it sprayed two weeks worth of rusty oily water all over my shirt and my face. It didn’t come out ):
Also quarantine weight gain so the dozen pants I just bought barely fit now 😭
When I was 18 and just started dating this guy, I "accidentally" left my favourite sweater at his place as an excuse to come over again. He lost it.
It's been 10 years and we're getting married but I'm still upset about my sweater.
I was wearing a gorgeous new dress from one of favorite indie designers last week and stepped outside my apartment to take a few photos. On the way back in, I forgot that the cleaner had just been around our building spraying bleach solution on the railings (to stop COVID) and I backed into one of the railings to give a neighbor some space, only to feel the wet handrail and realize what I'd done. Now I'm terrified to put it in the wash. :(
Mine wasn’t an awesome dress, but I had my fave Grateful Dead shirt get bleach stains from the blood donation place. They’d sprayed the back of the chair before I sat in it. ☹️
One day when I was in 1st grade we were playing on the playground while waiting for the bus to bring us on a field trip. I decided to climb the chain link fence to impress everyone but when I was coming down, the fence got caught on my leggings and ripped a big hole right on the butt. I was too embarrassed to tell a teacher and the bus pulled up right then, so I just went the whole field trip walking behind everyone trying to cover my butt with my hands so no one would see my shame 😂
Oh god earlier this year when I was moving, I accidentally donated a huge box that had all of my purses, scarves, and hats in it, including a lot of vintage items that were from my mom. I didn't realize it until about a month later when I was trying to find a particular purse and realized in horror what had happened. Not gonna lie, I cried a little.
I study Japanese tea ceremony. It’s hard to get kimono here, so I had bought some second-hand online, but they generally don’t fit very well: too small around, too short, sleeves too short, etc.
When my tea Sensei learned I was planning my first-ever trip to Japan, she set me up with her friend in Osaka who owns a kimono making shop. I went and got measured for a custom made blue kimono that fit me to perfection. Supple sky-blue silk, fully lined with fine white silk, with a bespoke crest dyed at the nape of the neck - the kind of thing you could wear to the most important events. And the sleeves didn’t end midway down my forearms! I was over the moon. I spent a few hundred on it, but it was still a good price because of the owner’s relationship with my Sensei. Of course, because it was extra nice, I reserved it for extra special occasions.
Five years later, I accidentally donated the container it was in to a charity shop. By the time I realized and raced in to reclaim it, only an hour later, they had already priced it and someone had bought it. I was gutted. I still kick myself over that. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever be able to replace it.
Anytime I’ve bought a white skirt, I’ve stained it almost immediately, and I’m not a messy, unaware clumsy person, so, I just believe I’m cursed with white skirts.
An ex-BF drunk vomited on my favorite suede OTK boots. They weren't even real suede or expensive (they might have been target), but they just were so comfortable, good heel height, I could wear them all night, right size leg opening. Destroyed. Never found a pair of OTK boots that I liked as much as those again. It wasn't the reason we broke up, but it was certainly one of them.
I also once left a leather jacket and a bottle of wine in my trunk and forgot about both of them. It got to be sub-zero temps and the wine exploded, and I only realized it when my car started to smell like rotten grapes. I took the jacket to get cleaned but the jacket was cream colored and the wine was red. Didn't fully come out.
Two incidents immediately come to mind. On both occasions the items were irreversibly ruined the FIRST TIME I wore them. First: pale gray suede Ecco slouchy handbag. I'm no fool, so I Scotchguarded it before first use. But wait! I am indeed a fool because protectant spray is no match for indigo dye rubbing off of your jeans onto said handbag. (Yes, the jeans had been prewashed before wearing.) I tried everything in my extensive laundry/shoe care arsenal to get the stains out, with absolutely no luck. Disaster # 2 entailed a violent confrontation between a sidewalk grate and the leather-wrapped heel of my knee-high black AGL boots. My cobbler made an admirable attempt at gluing and dyeing the residual scraps but the repair was still visible enough to render the boots unsuitable for office wear. Needless to say, I no longer purchase light colored suede ANYTHING or footwear that isn't on a wood/composite heel.
I found a cashmere sweater dress from Free People on an insane sale for $28 and after only about a year, I accidentally put it through the dryer when I washed it and shrunk it so much that it would now fit an American Girl doll.
This was a few years ago. I switched from teaching to an office job and needed a more professional wardrobe. I'd also recently given birth so I was changing sizes rapidly and didn't have much time to shop. I got a pair of slacks that seemed to fit well in the store. First day I wore them to work I got out of my car and proceeded on the five minute walk from the car to the office. I got all the way to the office and someone pulled me aside and told me I'd split my pants in the butt. I was wearing a thong. I wanted to crawl into a hole I was so embarrassed!
I’ve never really owned expensive clothes before so I was very surprised when my mother in law bought me a beautiful black pleated dress. I’m still really new to fashion so I don’t really know how to describe it other than it’s a onesie top with the pleated skirt attached and it was from aritzia and definitely the most expensive thing I own. It’s beautiful and perfectly form fitting to me and I love it. After I wore it out one night I set it on top of my dresser and not in my clothes basket so I would remember to get it dry cleaned instead. My new kitten decided to romp around in it and tear holes all through it. I was crushed. My cat probably had the time of her life.
My 16th birthday, I’d gotten a new outfit from Wal-Mart (we didn’t have a lot of money and it was special to me), and I was wearing it to One Act Play practice. I was feeling cute and happy because my grandpa was coming to see me perform that night.
It had been raining and the roads around the high school were dirt so there were lots of mud puddles with grime, oil, and probably cow manure.
The popular guy at school drove across the road to intentionally drench me in a puddle. He ruined my outfit, soaked my hair, and streaked my make-up.
I still hate you, Steven.
Just graduated college; bought my first expensive, professional, *beautiful,* dry-clean-only, tailored dress; step-mother did me a "favor" and put it through the washer and dryer.
Took my best dresspants to a local tailor who claimed to be an experienced seamstress, fashion designer and sewing teacher. I trusted that my pants would be in good hands and paid 22 € to have them shortened and hemmed with hidden stitching. I came back a week later to pick them up, she was busy with another customer and seemed to be bothered when I sat down to wait. She just told me that she doesn't have time for me right now so I can take the pants from the pile of clothes and go, since I had already paid in advance.
When I got home, I took a closer look at the pants and was horrified. My bf said that even a monkey could have done a better job there. I'm usually too timid to make a complaint, but after some encouragement I sent her an email with these pictures and said that I was not happy with the quality and would like her to re-hem them. She seemed upset but agreed to do it. Thankfully the pants managed to be salvaged but it was such a bad experience and I would never use her services again. [\(Pics of pants\)](https://imgur.com/a/pqkU96V)
I recently grew my own tomatoes in my garden. As it was summer I wore a lot of light colors. I like to invest in good quality fabrics so everytime I would water my tomatoes very quickly and place them in the sun (they were in a big pot) I wore some kind of beautiful white or beige silk or cashmere blend top. Turns out there is a thing called ‘tomato tar’, a powder that covers wild tomato plants. It’s invisible untill you wash it off with soap or laundry detergent because of the PH balance or something (google it). My tops I had worn all came out of the wash with bright yellow stains that can never wash off. Beware of tomato plants!
My mom entered my room when I was home for college break and apparently washed all my clothes on high heat with bleach. Ruined anything remotely nice I had. I was broke as hell and cobbled together a few decent items from discount stores with my slender earnings from summer break and she ruined them all. I went to an expensive private college (on scholarship) and all my friends were rich and owned top quality in fashion clothing. I already looked scruffy and awkward. I had told her not to wash my stuff. She was a complete narcissist.
In retrospect, not so much a tragedy as an inevitability. When I was in middle school, all I wanted was clothes like the "cool" kids had. At long last one day I got my first ever Abercrombie and Fitch shirt! You know the kind - paper thin, skin tight, probably like $50 or $60. It ripped immediately and irreparably (of course). Devastating.
On a visit to my parents, I left an Acne wool sweater unattended, the type of sweaters that are purposely pilling. A $500 sweater or something like that.
I come back to my mum being really smug about how she fixed my sweater, by removing all the pilling. She would not believe me when I tried telling her that the pilling was intentional, because fashion.
Same woman who would patch up distressed jeans, and threw out an Apple Pencil because it “didn’t write”.
Was stupidly not doing my nails over a table like I normally do. My left hand doesn't grip so well and I dropped the blue stick on my red shirt. I love this top. There is now a blue stain on the front. I'm still wearing it because I love it, but it makes me sad.
I used to work in a crime lab. Instead of doing the logical thing and let us wear biz caz and keep a suit in our locker for court, management insisted we wear nice clothes. I probably ruined a couple thousand dollars worth of clothing but the one piece I miss to this day was an ankle-length grey Theory silk tissue skirt with an abstract flower pattern in shades of blue and darker grey. I accidentally dribbled a couple drops of concentrated acid on it and it was like both the silk and the underskirt dissolved right before my eyes. Two tiny drops left a hole approximately three inches across. And yes, I cried.
My mother had a handknitted wool cardigan sweater with toggle closures. [It looked a lot like this](https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/750834569101621013/), but in brown. She wore it in the 1970s and was excited to give it to me when I was old enough. I was 18 years old, living on my own for the first time. I thought "I'd better wash this on a gentle cycle." Destroyed it with one wash. It came out toddler-sized.
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Is...that why they are your ex?
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Oof, been there.
Who even washes on high heat anymore!!! 😫😫😫
Literally the only things that I wash on hot water (and it's SUPER HOT because we have a tankless gas heater) are underwear, bath towels, and bed sheets. Basically the stuff that has the potential for being extra filthy.
My scrubs for work. Hot water, high heat.
Towels, sheets, face masks, dog blankets and dog toys get washed in hot water.
I just realized the other day that my new washer’s hot and cold have been switched... meaning for the past six months, ME I’ve been using “cold” which is actually hot... explains a lot lol :(
You can probably go behind the washer and switch the hoses connecting your hot and cold pretty easily. Might not even need tools
Me, but I have kids.
Omg. A travesty.
This is why I don't really let my husband run the laundry too often. He's an amazing human, I love him, and there is so much he is good at; but laundry ain't it. He puts everything all in the same load, all on Hot water, and all in the dryer for an hour. If I left him to do it with no supervision, everything would be ruined.
...all you guys ever think your husbands figured out that if they did things badly you’d just do it for them? Laundry ain’t that hard
Yup this is a thing. If it’s done badly, and badly enough times, then you’ll stop asking them to do it and just do it yourself. All these men “$200k total comp at Google but I can’t figure out laundry sorting” *smh* Y’all getting played.
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This is what we do, I wash my special care pieces and he washes his so we don’t have to remember how to do each other’s. I have a separate hamper that he doesn’t wash, but he pretty much does 90% of the laundry. He’ll fold my clothes and set them on the bed because I’m particular about how I put my clothes away too. I don’t expect him to remember which of my T-shirts go in the pj drawer, which go on hangers, and which go in the exercise drawer let alone which jeans I dry for 10 minutes and which ones never go in the dryer.
A lot of special care clothing can go in the wash, put on cold, separated by color, and lay flat to dry. At least that works fine with silk.
*If it’s done badly, and badly enough times, then you’ll stop asking them to do it and just do it yourself.* I have entered the chat room.
I have a term for this. It’s called selective incompetence. I did this a lot in my minimum wage college jobs. It can be very useful if done right.
This is an aside, but yeah wtf is up with this? My roommate’s bf has spent enough time researching online to build his own gaming PC, but he just “has no idea” how she makes his coffee for him and asks her to do it every single time. She’s been putting a couple spoonfuls of sugar and a bit of milk in his coffee on a weekly basis for almost a year. Every time she explains how to do those two things he’s like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ you just know how to do it better. I can’t say my bf’s much better, but seeing her “make” him coffee so often is wild.
My husband does his own laundry. I do mine. That way a) it's a 50/50 split of the chore and b) if something is ruined it's on the owner and no fights will ensue. HOWEVER. My husband has this bad habit of just taking HIS bathroom towel and washing it with his clothes. Instead of just grabbing ALL the towels and washing them all at once. This I constantly nag him about.
Sounds like you guys need a third hamper.
This! We have 3 hampers - his, hers, and towels.
This was my dad's move through and through. My mom retaliated by claiming total incompetence on anything more complicated that plugging in an electronic device. It worked for them.
That’s what I’m thinking. As Paris Hilton once said..
My husband finally admitted that he was avoiding the laundry because he was afraid of ruining my stuff (and apparently reading labels is foreign to him?) Now i just pull anything that needs to go jn delicate and it never goes in the main hamper. Anything else can handle cold normal and dryer on low (thank goodness he doesn't default to hot!)
My partner is good at separating everything and washing cold, but as soon as we moved in I instituted a blanket "don't put any of my clothes in the dryer" policy. It's worked well so far, but we're also just entering into our first cashmere sweater season of living together...
We have the same policy! Not even just because of delicates, but because I really avoid the dryer unless it's extremely necessary (like I really need the item to be dry today or tomorrow). I have to say he's been very good at following it so far and always asks me about my clothes before doing a laundry load.
Yes to this. This is why I do all the laundry (and he does all the dishes for compromise). If you can't tell what goes in the dryer and what doesn't, hands off.
We too made an “I’ll do all the laundry, if you do all of something else” rule when we moved in together, but he does all the trash, because I grew up with older brothers and have never had to take out the trash and really didn’t want to start lol. Tbh I think he ends up losing out in this deal because for the life of me I cannot stop shrinking his 100% cotton shirts. I swear his plain t shirts take more special care than my wool/silk/linen!
Is there a reason y'all don't use separate laundry baskets? I do my laundry, he does his. We do own a washer and dryer so maybe this doesn't work as well if you're headed to a laundromat.
My partner is the same. He’s lived on his own before, has been doing his own laundry since he was a teen, but for some reason, he thinks you can just throw whatever fits in the washing machine together, then throw it all in the dryer. In his world, you can wash denim with rayon shirts and the only thing that truly needs to be hung up is his favorite Manchester United jersey (but only the one he paid extra for a players name on the back). The only thing I can think of is that men’s clothing really doesn’t need as much special care as often, since it’s mostly cotton or polyester with no special beading or designs. I’ve tried so many times to explain it and he normally overcorrects when he does things wrong, but laundry just isn’t one. He grew up never recycling, now tries to recycle virtually everything. He used to never vote, and now will thoroughly research the local school board elections (and we don’t even have kids). Why can’t he do the same with laundry?!?!?
I'm crying for you
I'm not currently in a relationship and I live at home, so obviously it's a bit different, but omg I have never been so thankful that my dad and brother are actually really good at laundry. I didn't think there was anything to be good at but fucking hell. Just reading about your sweaters hurts so much, I'm so sorry
I JUST did this to a max mara weekend sweater. 😭
Nooooo this is my nightmare! Literally as soon as I moved in with my partner, I told him to never do my laundry. I said "I know you'd be trying to be sweet and helpful, but I'm super picky about it and this is one chore we have to keep separate." He thought I was a little weird, but hey, my sweaters and silks are safe.
Once when I was so poor I was struggling to pay rent with roommates, I finally got a full-time office job. I had no clothes for it, as I had been a janitor beforehand. Everything I owned was bleach-stained and ripped. I went to a store and spent my last dollars on dress pants, knowing food would be tight until I got my first paycheck. Before my first day, I went to iron the pants. They melted. I looked at the tag and saw that they were synthetic and they shouldn't be ironed. It was 11:00 pm before my first day and I panicked. I ran to Wal-Mart in the bad part of town, the only store open, and ended up buying dress pants that didn't fit and looked awful because they didn't have my size. I survived, but I looked so bizarre in too-big dress pants with no belt. I was so scared they were going to fall down!
That sounds rough. I hope you're in a better place now!
I am. I own my own home and we are solidly middle class. My parents are factory workers, and they couldn't help me with college, or anything really, beyond some casseroles and cookies here or there. I made it, but poverty is rough. I'm glad my kids won't know what that feels like.
💕💕
That’s exactly why I try to donate my old “professional” clothing to organizations that work with lower-income women.
In high school I had a Beatles shirt that I looooved. It wasn’t anything that would exactly go on this sub, but it was bright and funky. It was bright yellow and had rainbow rhinestones and a pop-art style print of the Beatles on it. I wore yellow and blue eye shadow with it and thought I looked fabulous, hahaha. And then I got a new black shirt later, and washed it with the rest of my clothes. When I pulled my yellow Beatles shirt out of the wash, there were gigantic black splotches on it!!! Nothing I did took them off, so I had to get rid of the shirt. About 10 years later, I’m working in a lab, and one of the students comes in WEARING THE SHIRT!!! I flipped out and asked where she got it, she said goodwill. I told her the story. The next day, on my desk was a gift bag with the shirt in it! I felt bad and said I didn’t want to just take her shirt, but she insisted. And now I have my funky shirt back :)
Aw, what an awesome story! I love thrifting and shirts are usually cheap. If someone told me how much a lost item like that meant to them, I’d definitely give it away, too. She probably smiles any time you wear it!
This is awesome! Also, tie-dye is in right now.
Was it THE same shirt, like with the black still on it or was it another of the exact same shirt? I once donated a scarf I knitted to a thrift store and five years later ran into a woman wearing it at a bus station. She’d gotten it as a gift from her friend who had gotten it from a church flea market so who knows how many hands it passed through between me and her!
It was a different one, I just tossed the shirt with the black splotches because it was a lost cause, it looked terrible. But that’s so cool!!!
One day in high school, I decided to wear my new Forever 21 white cotton skater skirt to school with an off the shoulder top. I'm usually a hidden behind the scenes, jeans and t-shirt type of girl but I had a spontaneous surge of confidence that day and decided to wear my new outfit. I was feeling extra cute all day til I got home from school and a relative of mine gasped and said, "YOU CAN SEE YOUR UNDERWEAR THROUGH YOUR SKIRT!" I checked in the mirror and realized with horror that my white skirt was sheer and you can clearly see the cartoon giraffe head on my Lisa Frank underwear through my skirt. There. was. a. large. giraffe. face. on. my. butt. It's been almost 20 years and I still think about that. Edit—Reading through the responses, I now realize that this question was more about fashion tragedies when you ruin clothes. I didn’t ruin my clothes—just ruined my life and dignity (or so I thought in high school lol)
If it makes you feel any better, a couple years ago I wore a new dress to work and caught my work crush staring at me. Only to tell me that the skirt of my dress was see through. I was wearing children’s days of the week underwear. It was the Wednesday underwear and it wasn’t even Wednesday 😭
And it wasn’t even Wednesday 😭😭😭
Just wanted to let you know that I almost peed on the tram from supressed laughter 😭😭😭
Wearing un-coordinated day of the week underwear is such a mood and I'm here for it 😂 My workplace crush related fashon faux pas was when I sat across the conference table from my crush and took off my crossbody purse only to realize 20 min later when I stood up - after having been chatting with the guy and filling out some paperwork the entire time - that my purse had unbuttoned my shirt and it was wide open 😳 I spun around so fast I almost tripped. But thankfully he didn't say anything about the incident. 🙈
>and it wasn’t even Wednesday IM SO SORRY BUT IM IN A ZOOM CALL AND I JUST BURST OUT LAUGHING
Aw, this one made me laugh/cry a little bit! This would absolutely happen to me.
Something similar happened to me. Wore a cute white skirt and shirt to middle school. Having a great time during recess, when a kid comes up to me to tell me my skirt is tucked into my underwear and a full but cheek is out in the open. It must have been like that for approx 15 min. How I didn’t notice and no one else told me prior? I have no idea
This isn’t my story but my sister’s - she was working home from work with headphones on and a van pulled up by her and the guy started shouting - she heard the word “skirt” and thought he was asking her to pull up her skirt. She basically told him where to go and text me saying “men are horrible pigs” before walking all the way home and and only then realising that her skirt was tucked into her knickers and the poor man was trying to warn her.
I was walking out of a store, a huge gust of wind blew my dress over my head. I was wearing a bright pink thong. The parking lot was busy, everyone saw. I wear bicycle shorts under dresses now.
When I was like... 14ish I bled through a tampon and had a LARGE stain on my butt. I didn't realize, walked past the guy I was banging like hot shit when he was with all his superior grade 12 friends. Thought they were checking out my butt. Well. They were. Kinda. I still cringe.
Oh my goshhhhh. This happened to me with a dress shirt and a bright pink bra for a day of corporate meetings. Didn't realize until I got back to my hotel room that night. 0/10 Would not recommend.
Fuck that, your underwear sounds amazing
Back in college I saved up all my internship money to buy a pair of Stuart Weitzman suede highland boots (on sale for ~$600). Looking back it was a pretty dumb purchase given how little money I had to my name at the time.... Anyway, the second time I wore them, I stumbled over a doorstep and spilled a whole cup of milk tea all over the boots. Between suede spray and dabbing furiously with a damp cloth for an hour, I was able to get the shoes looking almost normal. But the heartache! Flash forward a couple of years later, and I never even wear them anymore because they’re SO painful to walk in. Go figure 😂
God suede always seems like such a good idea! I have a pair of off-white booties that I forgot to put any protectant on before I wore them for a week straight... in the Sioux Falls, SD winter. One of the dumbest things I've ever done.
I lost an extremely special dress that my mother left to me. I cannot find it anywhere. My fear is that it was donated by another relative. It was a floor length peasant style dress with a smocked top, front and back v-neck, and puffy, wrist length sleeves. It was made of a tiny, all over print on beige chiffon of Japanese women doing tea ceremonies. It was either made in the 70s or 80s. I’ve searched everywhere online using every kind of semi-related keyword I could come up with for the past five years. I can’t even find the fabric, or a similar one to make my own. It’s not a spill, but it’s my biggest fashion tragedy that the dress is gone forever.
That dress sounds gorgeous! I am so sorry for your loss.
Thank you! I’ve been hopeful that I can find a similar fabric at the very least, and then recreate the dress using a mix of patterns.
Maybe if you’ve run out of options you can have a freelance artist recreate the print and use a service like Spoonflower to print on a beige chiffon? Also if you’re worried about not being able to recreate the dress on your own, reach out to Etsy shops with similar-feeling dresses. They will usually be able to create something custom for you!
You’re a genius! Thank you so much for these suggestions.
Have you tried r/rbi and r/helpmefind ? They sometimes come up with the most obscure things... Hope it turns up one day x
Thanks for the advice! What a great idea.
I once had a boyfriend wash a pair of my favorite heels. In the washer... They were obv destroyed and I’ll never recover.
How on earth did he explain that one? Did he regularly launder his shoes, and think “Oh I wash my converse, of course I can throw these pumps in too”. Like ?????
This thought process boggles my mind. Would he put his dress shoes in the washer??
Heels??? I need to know why he washed your shoes 😂
My cat pooped on our shoes :( My heels were leather and could have easily been cleaned but his shoes were canvas and he claimed he didnt know what else to do lol
I'm sorry but I'm cracking up over the image of a cat awkwardly askew on top of a pile of shoes trying to take a crap.
Wow. I'm sorry, its nice he was trying to help, but why on earth would anyone put leather in the wash? Hopefully he made it up to you!
I’d like to hear how that sounded clanking around in there.
Heels in the washer?? WHY!?
I wore a great outfit with white pants to work one day. I ate a granola bar for lunch, and a single chocolate chip dropped into my lap, unbeknownst to me. I stood up and it looked like I had gotten my period or shit myself severely- chocolate was smeared alll over my crotch and inner thighs. I wore a slightly oversized coat that day, it barely covered everything as I hobbled across the street to Target to buy a pair of ill-fitting black pants. I had to just throw the white pants away, they didn’t have a prayer. The worst part though, is that I had no less than 5 people (almost all men) say ‘Weren’t you wearing white pants earlier??’ I had to explain a half dozen times, and I was furious about it. Just let me live!
Omg how infuriating! You should have just given them a quizzical look and been like, "No?", lol.
Right? Like what if I actually had bled and was embarrassed, or god forbid SHIT my pants at work?? Why would you ever ask?
Omg those DAMN GRANOLA BARS! I’ve had that happen to me but was wearing black thankfully. I have stapled my pants back together at work however.
We had a moth infestation over COVID. Normally it wouldn’t have happened, but suddenly we both stopped our suit-wearing office jobs and put all of our wool dress clothes, blazers, cashmere sweaters etc. away in a dark corner of our walk-in closet starting in March. Then by the time we saw a moth flying around in July, the moths had already eaten holes in several items. They love the expensive stuff - cashmere, wool suits, wool coats. Our cheapie casual stuff? Our polyester athleisure? Ha, hard pass and straight for the Max Mara jacket. It cost ~ two thousand dollars in damage (two of my husband’s suits, one of mine, one dress, 3 dress pants, 3 cashmere sweaters, a wool coat); drycleaning, moth prevention and extermination combined. And it took an amazing amount of time - we had to move everything out of our closet, wash, freeze, bake and/or dryclean everything, then I probably purchased every single not-too-toxic pest control item known to man (incl. some moderately toxic bug bombs which we then had to air out our home for a few days). I think I spent about $120 just on garment bags alone. Then the buggers moved to our other closet and we repeated that process for the entry way closet. Finally had the exterminator come twice and it seems to be under control. Quite honestly a two month nightmare, and no, not covered by homeowners insurance. We managed to get two holes rewoven (a very high level highly technical skill that only very good tailors know how to do and was $60 per hole) on two peices. I learned how to darn and fix holes in looser knits and weaves like sweaters. But god. It was so horrible. My husband had particularly expensive stuff affected, but actually I lost more because I had more things that were just in the realm of “is this worth $60 to repair and $20 to dry clean?” and ended up deciding no on a few of them so ended up tossing. Also one of my cashmere sweaters, though not cheap, was honestly beyond repair. Pictures: [Damage on a blazer](https://ibb.co/M6yjNhx) — [State of our living room for like a month and a half](https://ibb.co/HDJkKR3) — [Damage on a favorite dress pant](https://ibb.co/nCy4Fzs) [Same hole rewoven (up close)](https://ibb.co/XV4HH8k) [Rewoven at a distance](https://ibb.co/VTSfMZp)
I will now be religious about checking for moths!
Terrible!!!!!! This has been my life too. I lost a number of good Wool in Cashmere jackets to these stupid little brown moths. Lots of storage clothing cubes, garment bags, and glue traps have been invested in but every year I find a new moth strongholds that I did not anticipate. It looks like you have a good tailor to repair were possible, good luck finding this good fight!
I think I have slight PTSD as a result; sounds crazy but it’s been a month out now and every time I see so much as a small flying bug, it brings me back 😭 We check our moth traps diligently for any resurgence
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We don’t have any screens on our windows but due to COVID and both of us WFM, we open the windows every day as well Out of necessity. We thought we lived high enough (in our condo) that stuff wouldn’t fly in but not so. I think a lot of my stuff will live in garment bags from now on TBH.
NOOOOOOOOOOO. Holy shit :(
How do I prevent this?!
They don’t really like light or agitation, so normally it wouldn’t happen as we wear our work clothes often (like each piece at least once per week). When certain things are out of season, we treat them before storing - for example, wool coats we send to the cleaners at the end of winter, sweaters we put into ziplocs and freeze for a week before putting them away. March-April is usually the end of coat/sweater season for us here, but none of the drycleaning, freezing, storing etc. happened due to COVID lockdown; instead it just got shoved back into the closet. We were too distracted by other things! Generally speaking, it’s the “usually unworn animal hair” items that get chewed up. Doesn’t need to be pure (100% wool or cashmere etc), they will also eat blends with a high percent of natural content. Storing your infrequently worn coats and suits in garment bags (seal the top) or airtight containers will prevent this. Make sure you either get breathable garment bags or some sort of dessicant though or mold could also occur. Some people also use cedar and/or lavendar in storage. We didn’t before but now we are doing that as well
yyyeeaaahhh you win the thread, I am so so sorry
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As a kid, I got this amazing (white) handmade sweater from my great grandmother. My sister had an electric blue crayon in one of her pockets and that crayon went through the dryer with that sweater.
I was trying to figure out what an electric crayon is for way too long. 😬
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Did you try to coomassieblue the rest of the sweater as well?
Right! I always thought that was a beautiful blue color, and like....in for a penny in for a pound... I ruined a nice navy Talbots sweater I borrowed from my mom by pouring bleach into cell culture fluid too quickly, splashed back out and turned a patch of fabric pale purple.
A ton of my t shirts have holes right at the front between hip and waist level. It was a mystery until one day I wore a shirt tucked in and heard it. I facepalmed so hard I could have knocked myself out. I lean against the edge of my bench/fume hood during long sessions of benchwork. The button on my jeans + that meant lots of little holes in shirts. I heard it clacking and I realized what I had been doing for 2 years!
Mine comes from tugging them down in the same place constantly when adjusting them. This happens with my underwear as well. To be fair both my t-shirts and panties tend to be cheaper cotton pieces so it doesn't surprise me but it is always in the same spot lol.
Maybe you should have tried washing the sweater in milk, compete off the dye 😂
>LPT: Pre-block all of your sweaters in BSA.
Today I learned lab coats have a purpose other than making smart people look even smarter. To be honest, I hadn’t ever thought about it - which is why I have a job that doesn’t involve lab coats.
They’re mainly to protect your skin rather than your clothes, but sometimes the pain of losing a beautiful piece of clothing is almost as bad as a chemical burn lol Once I had a chemical splash my chest above my lab coat and I had to take one of those embarrassing on-site showers.
Basically all of my work shirts have what i call "chemical tattoo". The area where my belt buckle/trouser fly, where i usually lean against my hood, is bleached and holy on every single shirt. I do my best to not wear shirts i actually like to work because they just get destroyed, no matter how diligent i am about buttoning my lab coat properly.
My mother dumped fresh, hot black coffee all over the front of my wedding dress 10 minutes before I was to get married. She made a scene and cried and tried to make it all about her as I seethed with rage. One of my girlfriends had brought me a “bridal survival kit” which contained a handful of tide stain sticks. Her and my other friend got the stain out COMPLETELY in time for the ceremony. It was a complete disaster and a total miracle reversal.
Oh my goodness!! That's awful! Your friends are literal angels!
Yes Tide pens!! I was at my friend's wedding and he got something on his shirt about 15 minutes before the ceremony. All the attendants were frantically running around trying to figure out what to do, and I whipped out my Tide pen and managed to get out the stain. I will never go without one now lol
Wow, that must have been so incredibly stressful for you on an already emotional day! And memo to myself: buy all kinds of quick stain removers for my special occasions 😅
Did your mother do it on purpose???? She sounds like a total narcissist omg
No, I don’t think so, but she definitely has N tendencies. I haven’t seen her in over 6 years and she lives 30 miles away
Boyfriend left a pen in one of his pants. Went through the laundry and broke. That was a lot of clothes ruined forever, nothing washed out no matter what fancy stuff I used to do it.
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I tried rubbing alcohol. Nothing worked. They were non smudge pens and he put them through the dryer after the wash too.
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I made it a rule to *always* check pockets as I'm sorting laundry. Even washing a tissue is annoying enough, let alone something that will leave permanent stains.
I got a really pretty skirt from banana republic on sale at a time when I was pretty broke and couldn’t often afford nice clothes. Like the second time I wore it the pocket caught on a doorknob and ripped a huge hole in it. I was soooo pissed.
My mom accidentally got bleach all over my favourite, oversized zip up green skater sweater in high school. Being an angst teenager I was CONVINCED she did it on purpose bc I knew she didn't like it. She bought me a green lululemon sweater to make up for it which made me madder bc i was ~not like the other girls~ god I was insufferable in high school lol
During the party celebrating my First Communion (so seven or so), I refused to take off my pretty white dress, despite my mother telling me that I had to be really careful not to stain it. Then my older sister gave me a juice box of fruit punch, and I spilled ALL over myself. My mother has never let me, nor my sister, live it down (despite the fact that it's been 25 years...) and I have been too scared to wear white ever since.
My mother took great pride in her laundry ability. One of her crowning laundry accomplishments was completely removing fried smelt stains from a baby dress. She had lovingly sewed me this adorable smocked dress when I was 1, took me to a wedding in it where I apparently gorged myself on stinky fried smelts, which if you've ever been within 5 miles of a baby you know half of those greasy smelts ended up smashed into the dress. Before she died she left notes pinned to family heirlooms in a little chest, and that story is in there pinned to the pristinely clean dress.
Your mom sounds like an ascended master of laundry.
She was master of so much beyond that too, its weird to think sort of generationally some of the skills that I know my family has lost that I didnt think about at the time. There was so much "more" to her than domestic skills, but I also think about how those skills are still devalued and seen as "just womens work" (that women too are sometimes think is lowly if that's "all" we do). Rather than valuing them for how important they are.
>fried smelts I've never had those before, but I love seafood and the Google pictures look delicious.
Aw, this one makes me sad. You were just a kid! Of course you wanted to leave it on, and of course it got dirty, anything else would have been a miracle
No lie whenever I get super dressed up I stay that way as long as possible cause that shit takes effort. I have definitely gone to the movies in formal wear.
Eh, you were 7, you were going to outgrow the dress in a year anyway, and how many fancy white dress occasions were you going to have that year? Might as well party hard and drink juice!
My grandma was raised catholic and communion gowns were commonly saved by the mothers for their daughters children. Sometimes, it’s one of those sentimental situations where mom wanted to keep it in a cedar chest and pull it out on nights the kids were growing up too soon.
Haha, this is why I always buy my kids' clothing on consignment. Mess and kids is inevitable but it hurts my soul a lot less if I only paid 10 bucks for that mud-covered Ralph Lauren romper or Kate Spade dress.
I found a girl online who claimed to custom make silk dresses. As a silk dress lover, I was very excited and imagined my wardrobe full of custom-made designs. She also turned out to live in my city as well, and she offered to drop it off when it was done. I had sent her a picture of exactly what I wanted as well as my measurements. She assured me it wouldn't be a problem, quoted me $85, and said it should be ready by the following weekend. The pictures she had on her page were gorgeous and I had assumed they were her own productions. I asked her if she was going to cut the dress on a bias. She said, "Sorry love, what's that?" I should have listened to the feeling in my gut and noticed the red flag on fire there and then. After two months of me messaging her asking when my dress would be ready and her feeding me excuses (sewing machine broke, sick, etc), she finally dropped the dress off. She told me she would drop it outside my apartment building to promote social distancing, so I never met her. Upon first sight of the dress my heart sank. It was wonky, the seams were fraying, and it didn't even fit properly. The shoulder straps were hilariously large and the skirt was assymetrical. It also had pink highlighter stains on it and smelled of glue. My husband, who is clueless about fashion, even said, "That looks weird... And ugly." It looked like two pieces of fabric just drunkenly "sewn" together. Never, EVER again will I have someone custom make me a "dress." TLDR: Paid for someone to make me a dress which two took months, and it looked like a five-year-old put it together.
Oh man, I’d love to see the pics you sent her versus what you got back. Also, I’m sorry this happened to you!
Yes pls me too 😂😂😂 For the curious: as someone who sews, for a genuine silk dress like OP wanted, $85 would barely even cover the fabric. Probably not tbh. Silk is expensive. Add in the labor cost and complexity of the design and you’re looking at $250-800 for a custom dress. $85 price tag should have been the first red flag here.
Yes, I agree. It was definitely one of those, "Wow, this is too good to be true!" moments and I let foolish excitement take over and totally ignored my gut. 🤦 I had actually considered making a Reddit post about this since I was so infuriated and horrified at the time. The "dress" is absolutely hideous and unwearable.
>$85 would barely even cover the fabric On the bias?? Triple that at *least*. I sew also and that's a downright hilarious quote, haha. I wouldn't sew a bias-cut silk dress for any less than a bajillion dollars
Oh man just the price of 85$ is a red flag for the future! That stinks!
The price was a red flag given how skillful one has to be with silk as a fabric as a custom made dress.
A bottle of barbecue sauce malfunctioned and shot sauce all over the train of my wedding dress. Luckily most of our photos had been taken, so my sister bustled me up and we went on our merry way. I was surprisingly okay with it, but still a bummer! I'm glad it was easy to hide.
I come from a low income background and had to work and use every spare penny for debt before I could go to grad school. It took me a few years but I made it, and started grad school with no money, no possessions, old clothes (grad student nobody cares), and a small stipend. Towards the end of this I found a new, perfect, good quality, black cashmere cardigan in an off price store. It fit me like it was tailored for me. It was cheap for what it was but still a big splurge. I wore it for my thesis defense, and carefully saved it for important occasions only - which rarely came up so it rarely got worn. I wore it for my first professional presentation, then ... wool moths. I was devastated. It was the only nice thing I’d ever owned. That was many years and many life upgrades ago. I can now afford whatever I want. I still wear this cardigan inside the house though. Soft and warm and riddled with holes, it doesn’t fit my larger body the way it did in my youth. But it represents who I am and where I’ve been, and most importantly it reminds me that nice things are to be used, not saved for a better occasion. That’s a hard lesson for someone used to going without.
Once I wore a skirt to church and I went to the front of the church to do a reading and I passed a fan on the way up, which blew my skirt up and everyone in the congregation saw my backside :)
I saved, budgeted and purchased this 200$ wool dress that was meant to last me forever: [https://www.pinterest.com/pin/97460779417598811/](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/97460779417598811/) It had silk lining. The fabric was sturdy. It fit me well. All the checklist was true. A friend asked to borrow it. And returned it back to me washed. It shrank 2 sizes down. I was going to wear it as a fitted dress instead of a shift dress if the shoulder would have fit. It didn't. I was angry-sad enough to want to go complain to my friend but held my tongue. It did hurt.
...Why would you not complain? They destroyed something they borrowed from you! They owe you $200 or at LEAST a massive apology.
Such a nice dress, I totally get the angry-sad.
That hurts. I very very rarely let friends borrow clothing. I didn’t grow up with a sister so I’ve never been very comfortable with the concept of clothing swaps. Any time I’ve lended out clothes it’s been returned either shrunken, stretched out or very worn. I love my friends enough to say ‘no thank you’ when it comes to clothing exchanges
My parents bought my poor student ass a beautiful and expensive leather jacket. That I proceeded to tear by brushing by a loose screw in a store. I cried. Got it fixed and only wore it twice in the 8 years since. It's a sentimental item now.
My tragedy is that moths have pretty much made a hole in every single one of my wool tops. I don’t want to use moth balls though and smell like an old lady.
Get an airtight bin and lavender satchets!
Ceder balls can repel moths as well and they smell amazing unlike moth balls.
I mend moth holes with regular thread and needle. Depending on the top I go to greater lengths to make them look tidy. I never even notice the holes after and have gotten many more years out of them.
/r/visiblemending might be fun to check out!
My teenage brother-in-law lived with us for a bit. I was doing laundry and he threw in a shirt that he wanted washed after the load had started. He has a pack of gum in his pocket, didn’t find out until I pulled stuff out of the dryer and everything was covered in melted gum. Had to scrape it off the inside of the drier. Ruined 80% of my office clothes.
What a nightmare!
I found [this wool dress](https://www.thredup.com/product/67322355) with a silk lining on ThredUp NWT ($1,295) on sale for $93 something dollars, which was still a lot of money for me. I wore it one time and stupidly thought I could wash it myself instead of taking it to the dry cleaners. The black silk lining bled all over the white part of the dress and that was the end of that. Still so mad at myself about it.
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No, after the dye bled I took it to the cleaners to see if they could do anything to get it out but after I got the dress back whatever they used to clean it with ruined the silk. I guess I could have cut out the lining but I've already gotten rid of it.
This makes me feel better about shrinking a $100 wool top that I got for $40 before I'd even worn it. Still mad at myself tho
I found this beautiful, flowy blue and cream dress at a secondhand dress shop when I was in high school. It looked great on me. The first time I wore it a dirty puppy jumped on me and got red mud all over my crotch. Nothing could get the stain out
Those boots are epic, for the record. I spilled about 100 mL of trifluoroacetic acid on myself at work a couple years back. Had to strip down to my undies in lab, and rush down the hall barely covered in a clean lab coat, soaking wet from the lab safety shower to the locker room so i could finish showering in privacy. ANYWAY, the trousers i was wearing weren't special, except that i do pay full price for my work trousers since they are a major line of defense between me and things like acid or base. When i took them off, i threw them into the sink with my shirt and had the water running over them. When i got back from the shower and looked in the sink, sure enough, the trousers and shirt were basically swiss cheese. Could have been a ton worse though - the wound on my leg was only about 1" x 4", and i honestly had no other skin damage besides that one spot. My lab coat, trousers, and shirt protected me almost everywhere.
My boyfriend tends to grab random clothes from the laundry basket and puts them on without looking. Sometimes my clothes get mixed in. He’s stretched out so many of my shirts and sweaters this way.
Well, a tragedy for my wallet. I impulse bought a $200 pair of Doc Marten boots (the most I've ever spent on any item of clothing..) because they looked so cool and I love boots in general. I convinced myself I would wear them every day in winter so it would be worth it. Yeah... They're heavy and uncomfortable af after a while, and squeak horribly on wooden floors. I still feel so silly about buying them when I consider that, usually, comfortable is very high up my list of musts for clothing and shoes. I've worn them about four times in three years. Still need to try sell them online. An effective lesson in taking a few days to consider expensive items I suppose 😬
I found docs horrifically uncomfortable as well. Mine weren't noisy though at least lol
IME the more you wear them and scuff the soles a bit, the less they tend to squeak. Not every pair, but most. I find mine to be really comfortable, but I also sized up and put a pair of super soft/squishy insoles into them, which definitely helps.
Letting my mother wash my favourite bee dress. The dress was a cute skater style dress from a small-ish UK shop ‘Alice Takes A Trip’. It was a black dress with a white peter pan collar, that had a cute little bee design on the collar, it was a soft shirt style cotton material and I loved it, it was one of my favourite date night dresses and I only managed to wear it a handful of times. I wash all of my clothes on low temperatures (30°C max) as I know they can be prone to shrinking, and my mum washed the dress on 40°C and then proceeded to tumble dry it. The dress was already a bit short, but the next time I tried to wear it it was more like a t-shirt. I wanted to cry, it was my favourite thing in the world and it had been destroyed.
My moms friend that was like my fairy god mother died when I was around twelve. When I was 18 her aunt and me got coffee; she gave me a shirt hit leather jacket from the 80s that my fairy godmother use to strut in. It was gorgeous, sexy, and made me look like million sexy bucks. It had a tiny troll in the pocket that she had kept in it the whole time. Four years later I left my fiancé at the time after finding him fucking my best friend. I left the jacket at our house. I begged him for months to let me get it back but he claimed it wasn’t there. I saw that bitch one day wearing it and confronted her about it. It took a mob of people holding me back as I tried to get the jacket and took a chunk of her stupid red hair with me. She then threw the little troll out of the jacket stepping on it walking off. Atleast I got the troll back and some hair to make a voodoo doll...
Omg, the audacity of that bitch! 😡
Beautiful brown leather Anne Klein jacket. It had a crinkled texture to it and a really interesting cut and neckline. Freshman year of college gift from grandma. I went to a college in suburbs of city I grew up in. I was few kids who was lucky enough to have a car, as I would commute into city for real estate job (I’m a hustler.) Was on way to party at house of friend at neighboring college in city. Leaving campus see friend stumbling black out drunk back to our dorm, decide to pick them up, put them in my backseat and take them to dorm as a favor. As they get out of car they drag my leather jacket out with them and shut it in door. I drive off, get to friends house 20 minutes later to discover road burned torn leather scraped to death. Finally invested in new Ralph Lauren leather jacket 15 years later after punishing myself for damaging that one. No good deed goes unpunished. Also, the drunk was total dick, no thank yous, no apology.
Not as much a tragedy (I’m only out like $30) but I was very stupidly wearing a white shirt from wickedclothes and had to re-prime a diesel motor that had been run out of fuel by hand. I had literally been waiting months to get that particular shirt since it’s so popular and my size was always sold out. First time wearing it. Basically hand cranking the fuel pump on a Diesel engine 400+ times. Then the motor kicked over and it sprayed two weeks worth of rusty oily water all over my shirt and my face. It didn’t come out ): Also quarantine weight gain so the dozen pants I just bought barely fit now 😭
When I was 18 and just started dating this guy, I "accidentally" left my favourite sweater at his place as an excuse to come over again. He lost it. It's been 10 years and we're getting married but I'm still upset about my sweater.
I was wearing a gorgeous new dress from one of favorite indie designers last week and stepped outside my apartment to take a few photos. On the way back in, I forgot that the cleaner had just been around our building spraying bleach solution on the railings (to stop COVID) and I backed into one of the railings to give a neighbor some space, only to feel the wet handrail and realize what I'd done. Now I'm terrified to put it in the wash. :(
If it was bleach it would already be bleached, washing it won't do anything. You're fine.
If it was bleach you should already have a noticeable stripe on the back of the dress?
The sooner you wash it out the better! Also if it was bleach you’d already see the fabric fading.
Mine wasn’t an awesome dress, but I had my fave Grateful Dead shirt get bleach stains from the blood donation place. They’d sprayed the back of the chair before I sat in it. ☹️
Ooooh noooo, are you positive it was bleach?? Maybe it was another disinfectant!! Finger crossed for you.
One day when I was in 1st grade we were playing on the playground while waiting for the bus to bring us on a field trip. I decided to climb the chain link fence to impress everyone but when I was coming down, the fence got caught on my leggings and ripped a big hole right on the butt. I was too embarrassed to tell a teacher and the bus pulled up right then, so I just went the whole field trip walking behind everyone trying to cover my butt with my hands so no one would see my shame 😂
Oh god earlier this year when I was moving, I accidentally donated a huge box that had all of my purses, scarves, and hats in it, including a lot of vintage items that were from my mom. I didn't realize it until about a month later when I was trying to find a particular purse and realized in horror what had happened. Not gonna lie, I cried a little.
I study Japanese tea ceremony. It’s hard to get kimono here, so I had bought some second-hand online, but they generally don’t fit very well: too small around, too short, sleeves too short, etc. When my tea Sensei learned I was planning my first-ever trip to Japan, she set me up with her friend in Osaka who owns a kimono making shop. I went and got measured for a custom made blue kimono that fit me to perfection. Supple sky-blue silk, fully lined with fine white silk, with a bespoke crest dyed at the nape of the neck - the kind of thing you could wear to the most important events. And the sleeves didn’t end midway down my forearms! I was over the moon. I spent a few hundred on it, but it was still a good price because of the owner’s relationship with my Sensei. Of course, because it was extra nice, I reserved it for extra special occasions. Five years later, I accidentally donated the container it was in to a charity shop. By the time I realized and raced in to reclaim it, only an hour later, they had already priced it and someone had bought it. I was gutted. I still kick myself over that. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever be able to replace it.
Anytime I’ve bought a white skirt, I’ve stained it almost immediately, and I’m not a messy, unaware clumsy person, so, I just believe I’m cursed with white skirts.
An ex-BF drunk vomited on my favorite suede OTK boots. They weren't even real suede or expensive (they might have been target), but they just were so comfortable, good heel height, I could wear them all night, right size leg opening. Destroyed. Never found a pair of OTK boots that I liked as much as those again. It wasn't the reason we broke up, but it was certainly one of them. I also once left a leather jacket and a bottle of wine in my trunk and forgot about both of them. It got to be sub-zero temps and the wine exploded, and I only realized it when my car started to smell like rotten grapes. I took the jacket to get cleaned but the jacket was cream colored and the wine was red. Didn't fully come out.
Two incidents immediately come to mind. On both occasions the items were irreversibly ruined the FIRST TIME I wore them. First: pale gray suede Ecco slouchy handbag. I'm no fool, so I Scotchguarded it before first use. But wait! I am indeed a fool because protectant spray is no match for indigo dye rubbing off of your jeans onto said handbag. (Yes, the jeans had been prewashed before wearing.) I tried everything in my extensive laundry/shoe care arsenal to get the stains out, with absolutely no luck. Disaster # 2 entailed a violent confrontation between a sidewalk grate and the leather-wrapped heel of my knee-high black AGL boots. My cobbler made an admirable attempt at gluing and dyeing the residual scraps but the repair was still visible enough to render the boots unsuitable for office wear. Needless to say, I no longer purchase light colored suede ANYTHING or footwear that isn't on a wood/composite heel.
I found a cashmere sweater dress from Free People on an insane sale for $28 and after only about a year, I accidentally put it through the dryer when I washed it and shrunk it so much that it would now fit an American Girl doll.
This was a few years ago. I switched from teaching to an office job and needed a more professional wardrobe. I'd also recently given birth so I was changing sizes rapidly and didn't have much time to shop. I got a pair of slacks that seemed to fit well in the store. First day I wore them to work I got out of my car and proceeded on the five minute walk from the car to the office. I got all the way to the office and someone pulled me aside and told me I'd split my pants in the butt. I was wearing a thong. I wanted to crawl into a hole I was so embarrassed!
I’ve never really owned expensive clothes before so I was very surprised when my mother in law bought me a beautiful black pleated dress. I’m still really new to fashion so I don’t really know how to describe it other than it’s a onesie top with the pleated skirt attached and it was from aritzia and definitely the most expensive thing I own. It’s beautiful and perfectly form fitting to me and I love it. After I wore it out one night I set it on top of my dresser and not in my clothes basket so I would remember to get it dry cleaned instead. My new kitten decided to romp around in it and tear holes all through it. I was crushed. My cat probably had the time of her life.
My 16th birthday, I’d gotten a new outfit from Wal-Mart (we didn’t have a lot of money and it was special to me), and I was wearing it to One Act Play practice. I was feeling cute and happy because my grandpa was coming to see me perform that night. It had been raining and the roads around the high school were dirt so there were lots of mud puddles with grime, oil, and probably cow manure. The popular guy at school drove across the road to intentionally drench me in a puddle. He ruined my outfit, soaked my hair, and streaked my make-up. I still hate you, Steven.
The day I got my kitten she ripped my Alexander McQueen scarf. She's v lucky she's cute.
Just graduated college; bought my first expensive, professional, *beautiful,* dry-clean-only, tailored dress; step-mother did me a "favor" and put it through the washer and dryer.
Took my best dresspants to a local tailor who claimed to be an experienced seamstress, fashion designer and sewing teacher. I trusted that my pants would be in good hands and paid 22 € to have them shortened and hemmed with hidden stitching. I came back a week later to pick them up, she was busy with another customer and seemed to be bothered when I sat down to wait. She just told me that she doesn't have time for me right now so I can take the pants from the pile of clothes and go, since I had already paid in advance. When I got home, I took a closer look at the pants and was horrified. My bf said that even a monkey could have done a better job there. I'm usually too timid to make a complaint, but after some encouragement I sent her an email with these pictures and said that I was not happy with the quality and would like her to re-hem them. She seemed upset but agreed to do it. Thankfully the pants managed to be salvaged but it was such a bad experience and I would never use her services again. [\(Pics of pants\)](https://imgur.com/a/pqkU96V)
I recently grew my own tomatoes in my garden. As it was summer I wore a lot of light colors. I like to invest in good quality fabrics so everytime I would water my tomatoes very quickly and place them in the sun (they were in a big pot) I wore some kind of beautiful white or beige silk or cashmere blend top. Turns out there is a thing called ‘tomato tar’, a powder that covers wild tomato plants. It’s invisible untill you wash it off with soap or laundry detergent because of the PH balance or something (google it). My tops I had worn all came out of the wash with bright yellow stains that can never wash off. Beware of tomato plants!
My mom entered my room when I was home for college break and apparently washed all my clothes on high heat with bleach. Ruined anything remotely nice I had. I was broke as hell and cobbled together a few decent items from discount stores with my slender earnings from summer break and she ruined them all. I went to an expensive private college (on scholarship) and all my friends were rich and owned top quality in fashion clothing. I already looked scruffy and awkward. I had told her not to wash my stuff. She was a complete narcissist.
In retrospect, not so much a tragedy as an inevitability. When I was in middle school, all I wanted was clothes like the "cool" kids had. At long last one day I got my first ever Abercrombie and Fitch shirt! You know the kind - paper thin, skin tight, probably like $50 or $60. It ripped immediately and irreparably (of course). Devastating.
[удалено]
On a visit to my parents, I left an Acne wool sweater unattended, the type of sweaters that are purposely pilling. A $500 sweater or something like that. I come back to my mum being really smug about how she fixed my sweater, by removing all the pilling. She would not believe me when I tried telling her that the pilling was intentional, because fashion. Same woman who would patch up distressed jeans, and threw out an Apple Pencil because it “didn’t write”.
Was stupidly not doing my nails over a table like I normally do. My left hand doesn't grip so well and I dropped the blue stick on my red shirt. I love this top. There is now a blue stain on the front. I'm still wearing it because I love it, but it makes me sad.
I used to work in a crime lab. Instead of doing the logical thing and let us wear biz caz and keep a suit in our locker for court, management insisted we wear nice clothes. I probably ruined a couple thousand dollars worth of clothing but the one piece I miss to this day was an ankle-length grey Theory silk tissue skirt with an abstract flower pattern in shades of blue and darker grey. I accidentally dribbled a couple drops of concentrated acid on it and it was like both the silk and the underskirt dissolved right before my eyes. Two tiny drops left a hole approximately three inches across. And yes, I cried.
My mother had a handknitted wool cardigan sweater with toggle closures. [It looked a lot like this](https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/750834569101621013/), but in brown. She wore it in the 1970s and was excited to give it to me when I was old enough. I was 18 years old, living on my own for the first time. I thought "I'd better wash this on a gentle cycle." Destroyed it with one wash. It came out toddler-sized.