Garments – Stories

Garment: Shoes, Converse, limited edition, quote from Metallica “…And Justice for All”
Color: Used to be white, now grey

Material: Canvas

Wear and tear: Holes and wear on the sole and fabric

Country of origin: USA

Donor: Tina Berger

User: Tina

Purchased: On Tina and Andres’ honeymoon to San Francisco

Year of purchase: 2009

Year donated: 2024

Journey:
From: Tina

Potential stories:
These shoes have been through EVERYTHING. Stepped in dog poop. Walked through the forest in Germany on the way from my uncle’s place to my grandmother’s. Dense spruce forest. Bent down to pick something up and—splat. Bird poop. Nothing to wipe with. No moss. Nothing. Had to walk all the way to my grandmother with poop on my shoe. Backpacking in Asia. Classical concerts and heavy metal in cramped dives.

JUSTICE FOR ALL

You wouldn’t think justice is what knocks you flat on your honeymoon. But there’s a particular smell in San Francisco—of foot sweat and struggle. There has been a lot of struggle. On the surface, it’s justice for all.

We wandered around in honeymoon haze on thin soles. Wearing our music shoes. Classical shoes, philharmonic and rockabilly. Harmony for everything except feet and backs.

We helped two families, plus a stuffed animal, link arms around one of the great red trees. A redwood. We took strangers by the hand, linked ourselves together, stretched out until connective tissue and sunburned skin strained. Standing there, stretching our armpits, we felt that we wanted a flock. So we went searching—and stepped in different kinds of poop. Hard and soft.

Walking through dense spruce forest, where the sun never gets through and nothing grows, I bent down to pick up a pinecone. Splat. A bird dropping made its way down through the spruce desert and yesterday’s seagull dinner landed on my ankle. Nothing to wipe with, no moss, nothing. I walked the whole trip with poop on my shoe.

Justice for all.

Garment: Dress with puff sleeves and metal buttons
Color: Red

Material: Linen

Country of origin: Austria

Donor: Fride

My godmother bought this dress when, at the age of 16, she moved to Austria to follow her brother. There she met the man she would marry. She became seriously ill with cancer in her sixties. That’s when she began giving me some garments she felt I should have—this dress among them. I have worn it, and still wear it, as much as I can.

On May 1st, I sent her a photo of myself wearing the dress and a Palestinian scarf, marching in a demonstration. She was hospitalized at the time, and we knew the end was near. “Fight for our strength!” she replied.

A few days later, she was gone. I sang Gabriella’s Song at her funeral.

Garment: Dress

Color: Blue with a red band

Material: Durable jersey

Wear and tear: None

Country of origin: Gaza

Donor: Kirsti

User: 2003

Purchased: 2003

Year acquired: 2003

Year donated: 2025

The fabric is strong, durable—just like the place, the city, the country it comes from. It doesn’t lose its color, its resilience, not even its beauty. There is nothing in this dress that doesn’t remind me of where it comes from. Rafah, which barely exists anymore. Rafah, transformed into something unrecognizable, into something like wreckage washed up on a shore, into something crumbled to dust. The only thing that lets me recognize it is the name on the map. A small dot at the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, right by the Egyptian border.

In the images I see now, there is nothing left that reminds me of the green oases behind tall wooden fences, of laughter-filled conversations on shady balconies, of generous meals at large wooden tables under ceiling fans, or laid out among cushions and mats on the floor in the home of the family I once knew. Only the heat is the same, and the windswept sandy streets. And down there you can see the sea, shimmering, alluring—and forbidden territory for those who live there. Then, as now.

I received the dress from Channa. Channa, who loved me while sometimes not being able to bear the sight of me, who embraced me and pushed me away at the same time, because I represented a freedom she could not even dream of. Channa. Now it is too late. The only thing I can do is wear this dress for you, in your name, Channa. Forgive me for everything I did not understand. Forgive me.