Cleaning Out the Fashion Queen’s Closet

(Post by Susan)

We kept putting it off but we knew we had to do it sooner or later. It was time to clean out Iris’ stuff. And there’s a whole lot of her stuff! She was a major pack rat! She kept everything, and I mean literally, everything!

Today, Nancy and I spent all day today going through Iris’ closet. Actually it was three. She had three closets full of clothes. And we had to sort through them to decide whether we want to take them, give them away, save them for Avery, or throw them away.

It was a very sentimental, emotional, and bittersweet day. And we went through only her closets. Just wait until we go through the rest of her stuff!

The Fashion Queen

Growing up, Iris was always the fashion queen, not just in the Wu family, but of all her friends. She loved to go shopping. She was fashionable and stylish, often ahead of the trend. She loved to shop. Her favorite hobby was looking at, trying on, and buying pretty clothes and shoes. I was the exact opposite. I hated shopping, and I hated dressing up. I was born a tomboy, and it was all grandpa’s fault.

When Iris was about a year old, grandpa took Iris to the barber and shaved off all her hair. The picture on the right showed dad with Nancy and Iris being bald. Grandpa had always wanted a grandson. It was some Chinese superstition that if you shaved the girl’s hair, the next baby in the family would be a boy. When mom was pregnant with me, there was a lot of pressure and burden for her to give birth to a boy. She prayed every day and night that I’d be a boy.

Well, they had me instead.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

As Nancy and I went through all of Iris’ clothes, it brought back a lot of memories. As mentioned before, Iris kept everything. She had clothing from way back when we were in Taiwan, at least 20 years ago. Every piece of clothing had a story/history. Pass-me-down clothes from Nancy. PE uniforms from middle/high school. Dresses she wore for her prom, Nancy’s wedding, my piano recitals, her wedding, my wedding, and other special occasions that we recognize from pictures. Clothes she bought, custom-made, or acquired from her travels around the world – Shanghai visiting me, New York visiting Nancy, Taiwan visiting relatives, business trips, and vacations. Maternity clothes. And there were clothes she wore during the last few days/weeks we spent together.

So many memories, so much sentimental values. But we can’t keep them all. Nancy will go back to New York soon. I’ll be going back to Shanghai in a few weeks. We could only take so much with us. Besides, we don’t even know how to wear half her stuff and by the time Avery is old enough to wear them, she’d probably think mommy’s clothes were too old-fashioned and ugly.

Nancy and I tried out Iris’ clothes and took what we liked/fitted. (The three of us are about the same size although Iris lamented her entire adult life that she’s the shortest of the three.) Some of the clothes, we didn’t know how to wear/match them. Iris had some pretty ‘weird’ and ‘colorful’ outfits. She called them ‘fashionable’ and ‘stylish’.

We separated her clothes into different piles. One pile for Nancy. One pile for me. One pile for Avery to remember her mother. One pile to give away/donate. We joked that we’d probably wake Iris up from the grave if she knew what we were doing. We imagined her saying “好土啊!” when we tried out different combinations because we couldn’t figure out how she wore/matched them. She would have been appalled that we were giving away what she would have considered ‘trendy’.

“You guys have no taste!” she’d say.

I filled up an entire 50.5 pound box of clothes to bring back to Shanghai. I won’t need to go shopping for the next two decades (thank God!!!).

And it made me sad because Iris was the one who would take me shopping and pick out clothes for me. Almost everything I had in my closet was picked out by her or given to me. I’d wear them until they were hole-ly.

The last few years in Shanghai, I had to survive on my own. It was horrible. I’d go to a mall maybe once a year or two, walk inside a clothing store, and come out after two minutes. Shopping for clothes gives me a migraine.

Shopping Trips Over the Years

Ever since I could remember, I always hated shopping. That was because mom would take Nancy, Iris, and me to the mall on weekends. They’d spent hours visiting department stores trying on a million outfits and shoes. I’d wander off to the nearest electronic or game store and play with whatever gadgets or games they had on display.

I remember in 2002, Nancy, Iris, mom, and grandma came to Shanghai to visit me. We went to downtown Puxi to do their favorite/my least favorite activity — shopping. The picture on the left was taken at Xin Tian Di (新天地). Iris picked out a bunch of stuff for me to try on. When she handed me a skirt to try on (and yes, I did wear skirts and dresses at one point in time), one sales lady came over, looked at the skirt, looked at me, and said “That’s not going to fit!” I was going to put the skirt back on the rack but Iris insisted that I try them on anyway. I went into the fitting room to put on the skirt. It fitted me just fine. When I came out, both Nancy and Iris said it looked good on me. The same sales lady came over and yelled in a loud voice, “Take it off! You’re over-stretching our skirt!”

That was their first impression of Shanghai. Rude, Shanghainese customer service. That’s why I hated shopping even more after moving to Shanghai.

That same trip, the five ladies (grandma, mom, Nancy, Iris, and me) went to Hangzhou for a few days. I should have known better than to take them to Hangzhou during the May holiday. It was my first year living in China and I didn’t know that one should NEVER travel during the two golden weeks in China – the first week of October (National Holiday) and the first week of May (Labor Day). But we did and survived the trip along with about a billion other Chinese who happened to visit Hangzhou at the same time. In Hangzhou, the ladies (not including me) bought a bunch of stuff. Silk this, silk that, silk everything. We ate some good ramen and dumplings, drank lots of dragon-well tea (龙井茶), and visited a few touristy but beautiful places. The picture on the right is Iris and me shopping in Hangzhou. 

In 2003, Iris came to Shanghai again for a business trip. I got to stay with her at the Ritz-Carlton for a few days. One evening, we went to the Super Brand Mall to shop. Iris picked out a bunch of stuff for me because I was running out of decent wearable clothes. It was nice to have her pick out clothes for me because I’d never go shopping on my own. We bought a bunch of clothes.  Then Iris and I went to Guilin/Yangshuo for three days. That was the only time that we ever traveled together (just the two of us). I’ll always remember that trip. We had both just broken up from our first relationship (of several years), so it was a sweet, fun, exciting, sister bonding time/trip. She bought a few souvenirs from West Street (西街) in Yangshuo. As Nancy and I were going through her closets, I recognized a few items from that trip in 2003. They were still in good condition. Most of mine are hole-ly since I got a lot more ‘mileage’ out of mine.

The next time I went shopping again was in 2005 when the entire family came to Shanghai for my wedding. The ladies, of course, spent several days shopping at Xujiahui, Huai Hai Road, Xiang Yang (Fake) market, and Dong Jia Du (Fabric) market. They got a bunch of stuff custom-made at the fabric market — pants, shirts, jackets, cashmere stuff, suits, etc… They also got a bunch of stuff at the fake market. I found a few bags in Iris’ closets. I also found a few jackets, coats, and shirts she bought during that trip. I am bringing back to Shanghai the cashmere coat she had custom-made at the fabric market. Wow, that coat has traveled far.

Spanning Three Generations

I was too young to remember, but Nancy found several clothes that belonged to mom when she was younger. Mom in her younger days was also a fashion queen (note I said “was”). She had her own fashion store/business in Taiwan and did very well for several years. She kept up with all the fashion trend that took place in Taiwan back in the 70’s. She sold her fashion business one or two years after I was born. The picture on the right showed grandma and the three of us standing in front of mom’s store.

Our family moved to the U.S. in 1987. Mom brought some of her favorite clothes with her. We did too. Over the years, our family moved around a lot, from Taiwan to Ypsilanti (MI) to Rochester (MI) to Springfield (IL) to Milpitas (CA) to Fremont (CA). Mom and dad moved around even more after we all graduated from Berkeley, moved out, got married, and settled down. The Wu family is scattered in 6 different locations – Fremont, Sunnyvale, New York, Shanghai, Taipei, and San Diego. A lot of our stuff from childhood got tossed out or misplaced each and every time we moved, but Iris kept a lot of stuff for all of us.

Going through her closets, we found mom’s clothes from her younger days. We found clothes that Nancy wore when she was in middle school then passed down to Iris. We put some of them aside for Avery.

Most Precious Memories

We found a paper bag sitting in one corner. Inside were clothes that Iris wore in her last days going in and out of the hospital. Her favorite and most comfortable vest, a white shirt, a pair of gray sweatpants, a pair of light-gray crocs, and her pink breast cancer bracelet. Looking at them brought tears to our eyes.

And then we found the gray turtleneck sweater that she was wearing the day we took a bunch of pictures — the three sisters, spouses (minus Jason), and Avery. It’s a rare occasion when the three sisters (or the entire Wu family) are together in one place. We always take pictures when we get together. The picture on the right was taken just a few weeks ago, near the end of January. It was the last time we took pictures of and with Iris.

I tried on the turtleneck sweater. Avery ran over to me, gave me a huge hug, and said “Ma ma? Ma ma?”

Avery remembers mommy and her favorite sweater.

I cried for a long time after that. I put the sweater away in a special place for Avery.