The connection with clothing can go much deeper than added confidence or comfort. As Mair so perfectly put it, the life events we experience while wearing these pieces “makes them more than just fabric but carriers of emotional significance and memories”. And just like smells or sounds can make a memory come back into your mind, clothes can do exactly the same.

“Memory and emotion are closely connected in the brain to the extent that the more emotional an event, the more easily the memory can be recalled,” Mair says, which explains why a wedding dress, for example, may hold more emotion than a standard shirt. Or why one look at a jumper that you were wearing when you heard you were being made redundant can immediately recall the experience and make you disinclined to wear it again. “Some clothes may hold nostalgic value based on visual aesthetics, such as vintage designs or fashion trends from specific eras,” says Mair. “Visual elements can trigger feelings of nostalgia, evoking memories of different periods in our lives.” This goes some way to explaining why we’re still sold on Y2K fashion, viewing the period as a somewhat gentler time before Covid, a cost of living crisis and another war.

These memories and attachments to clothes are evoked through our senses, Mair explained. “Visual cues such as colour, pattern, style and design are likely to have sociocultural associations (such as pink with feminine and suits with professionalism) that influence our clothing choices, and ultimately, our behaviour.” We’re already making associations with items before we’ve necessarily even worn them. But with pieces we have worn, it’s not just all about their appearance either. “Although we may consider vision the most important sense, our sense of smell evokes memory faster than any other sense due to its spatial closeness to the amygdala (emotion centre) in the brain. Smelling a familiar scent on a piece of clothing can take us back to a specific time and place very quickly, triggering memories associated with that moment and evoking feelings of nostalgia, allowing us to relive cherished moments and experiences,” Mair explains. This may explain why we can feel more comfortable wearing a partner’s clothes or hesitate to wash an item after a particularly great day.

Just as we have clothes linked to happy memories, we also have pieces that we put on through the bad ones too, and for some, it can be just as hard to part with these. “If you’re not ready to part with the clothes but don’t want to see them, store them away and revisit the decision when you feel more prepared to handle the emotions associated with the items,” suggests Mair. “If the memories are particularly distressing or traumatic, consider seeking support from a therapist or counsellor who can help you work through your emotions and guide you on how to cope in a healthy manner.”

If you do have some positive nostalgia-filled pieces but can’t bring yourself to wear them for whatever reason, Mair suggests upcycling them into home decor or a memory blanket, so you can keep the memories while giving them a new lease of life.

How can clothes hold on to so many memories? We asked an expert