GLOBETROTTERS MONTHLY CHALLENGE

My Wedding Dress Was a Souvenir

Because I love wearing my travel gifts

No ceremony was planned and yet as we strolled across a local market in Ghana I knew this was going to be my wedding dress. One day. I took it off the shelf, tried it on, and told my then-boyfriend ‘This is going to be it’.

Sure. There was a time when the souvenirs I bought were something less useful. I have brought home an Eiffel Tower key chain. A replica of a famous church is still collecting dust on my parent’s shelf and a number of shot glasses are somewhere in the attic.

But those souvenirs have little to no emotional meaning to me. Apart from the shot glasses out of which I had been drinking at various parties, I haven’t even touched the other travel gifts.

Over the years, my understanding of souvenirs has changed just as much as I did as a person. While I still stroll through souvenir shops, I don’t reach out to these dust collectors anymore.

While I can’t deny I enjoyed shopping as a teenager and spent many Saturdays strolling the shops looking for clothes I didn’t need, I no longer enjoy this activity.

In an effort to reduce my own impact on the environment through the fashion industry’s overproduction, I only buy clothes when I need them. And in case you say when do we, raised in a first world country really need new clothes, I tell you when the old ones tear apart.

I always travel with a tiny sewing kit. I stitch holes in shirts and pants, I often handwash our clothes on trips and wear mostly the same clothes in a 7-day cycle. So yes, those pieces eventually do fall apart in a way I can’t even donate them anymore.

While I still have a few too many extra shirts at my parent’s place in Germany and at my in-laws in Namibia, I am still trying to constantly downsize the amount of belongings I own.

This transports over to souvenirs I might or might not buy when living abroad in a foreign country or visiting a city in a neighboring country. The most memorable travel gifts I do buy these days are the ones I can wear.

This means I make use of the items bought in the country I went to. Since I love colors and colorful patterns, I look for locally produced pieces where the environmental factor also plays a role.

Backpacks

Backpacks used to be uncool when I was a teenager and instead of carrying something evenly distributed on my back, I’d have handbags loaded with weight pulling on one shoulder.

When I went to Ghana on my first overseas trip, I only had my big backpack and a small handbag. Soon, I figured out a daypack would be much handier and so I didn’t think twice when I walked through a local market and saw this beautiful piece pictured below.

It no longer is with me as it tore apart after wearing it for years and loading it possibly with too much weight than it was made for but I carried it with pride until its last day.

Shoes (flip-flops)

These days, I don’t carry a lot of shoes from one home to the next. One pair of sneakers, a pair of hiking shoes and two or three pairs of flip-flops which I quickly wear through as I walk in them all summer if I’m not barefoot.

They aren’t just any flip-flops. They are made of straw and have strings made of fabric. Before traveling out of Europe, I’d get them from my Italy vacations. Now, I have found them on diverse flea markets in Africa or Asia as well.

I didn’t find a picture of just those flip-flops but this old one of me wearing a pair in Venice in 2009. Carrying two handbags of which one was a souvenir possibly bought in the same city I was in, I no longer long for such items.

Dresses

I love light summer dresses even if I don’t wear them a lot as an active girl. I like them but they are probably the kind of souvenirs I wear the least. And I am not talking about the wedding dress pictured and mentioned above.

I did wear that dress on my own wedding, as well as on a friend’s wedding and on many other summery days as well. It wasn’t a one-time purchase and certainly on the cheaper side of wedding dresses but the perfect one for me.

While living in Ghana for a couple of months, I bought twice beautiful fabrics from the local markets and then went with them to a seamstress next door who made me a pretty dress out of them. We could barely communicate in the same language with each other but I loved being part of their culture and wearing their produced items. I received smiles from all around.

Sadly, I no longer fit in one of the dresses but couldn’t bring it over my heart to give it away yet. I do not throw any clothing away but donate them to families and people in need.

Pants

Pants are certainly the kind of clothes worn the most. If short or long ones, bought in one of many African countries I traveled to or in Thailand, I explore the world wearing these colorful souvenirs.

While I do not just receive compliments and get asked about where I bought them, they represent a lot more to me. It’s the culture they were made in, the weather I bought them in and the places these pants now carry me to.

Ponchos

I don’t know why I used the plural form of this word as I never owned a poncho up until two years ago. I found it a weird piece of clothing with not much sense to me.

Until that day I walked into a local clothing factory in Thailand at the border to Laos. We stayed in a bungalow on the fields and watched the women weave every day outside on the weaving looms. We ate in the only restaurant on site which offered three different meals. They were every day the same but yummy as.

We extended our stay day by day and on the last morning before leaving the premises, we walked into the clothing factory where some of their produced goods were displayed. That was when I saw this poncho and knew I needed it.

Guess what? I have worn it a lot more than I thought I would. See below. The Thai poncho in front of the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe in southern Africa.

Sarongs

This piece of clothing goes back a lot further than the poncho.

Growing up in Germany, my parents would take my sister and me on annual beach vacations to the Adria. While we did get to buy a bunch of souvenirs each time, the light sarong was possibly the most useful one even if back then I mostly used it as a beach towel.

Today, I don’t even go on a city trip without taking a sarong with me. It’s in every cabin on every flight and also goes on road trips.

I use the sarong as a scarf, blanket, towel, pillow, jacket, dress and whatever else I need at that moment.

Bracelets

And then the kind of souvenir I wear even in the shower. My collection of bracelets from all around the world even carries unique memories since I remember where I bought them or who gifted them to me.

I don’t do silver or gold jewelry and am perfectly happy with this colorful selection of bracelets as my day-in and day-out accessory. Sure, they break from time to time but that is part of the process as they then make space for new ones.

(And yes, my skin below the bracelets hasn’t seen the sun in almost ten years.)

Memories

Adding to all the souvenirs I wear on a daily basis, I do want to mention those I carry with me. Memorable moments that either were a lesson learned or a beautiful adventure in a foreign place.

I will never forget when I saw the first time in my life a pineapple in the wild. I didn’t know they grow on the ground.

While hiking along the coast of Ghana, I stumbled first upon one and then more pineapples growing in the bushes. The biggest aha moment I can remember.

They say traveling is the best school and I can only agree. I will never forget how hot it was that day as I was walking down the hill. The ocean just appeared in front of my eyes and a light breeze was blowing.

Then I just stood there. Staring at the pineapples. I stood there in awe.

This was a writing prompt response to this month’s writing challenge. Souvenirs. Read below the submission guidelines if you would like to submit your own story:

And here are two articles submitted by our writers displaying some very unique souvenirs.

Marianne O with “Boxes from Asia — Memories of Tears, Beauty, and Strengths”

Tim Ward, Mature Flâneur with “A River of Wine: Marlborough, New Zealand”

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