Time, Wear and Maintenance: the afterlife of things

In 1903 novelist and journalist Jack London published an account of his undercover investigation into poverty in the East End of London. He described the clothes he wore, which included ‘a frayed jacket with one remaining button’. London’s jacket was rendered derelict by the effects of time and wear, but it is important to remember too the assiduous habits of maintenance (washing, brushing, patching, darning) that were used to counter dereliction and to keep clothing in good repair. This chapter explores clothing and textile examples to suggest methodologies for writing the history of the ‘afterlife’ of objects, not as new and pristine things, but in their everyday relationships with the people who used and maintained them.