Haunted Clothing

[Anonymous]

As a former dealer in vintage clothing who had some customers complain that we were bringing ghosts in with the clothes, I'd like to know if anyone else has any experiences with clothing (of any age) that they thought was haunted?


For example, I have a friend who gets physically sick/enraged around some military uniforms in museums. Is she picking up the pheremones of the former wearer? Or is there a ghost hanging about the costume?

 

[carole]

I had a book on ghost stories which included a tale told by Thora Hird. When she was young and playing in repertory theatre, one of her stage costumes included a jacket which gave her a terrifying suffocating/choking feeling when she wore it.

I'll see if I can dig out the book and give you more details.

Carole

 

[Anonymous]

Are the millitary uniforms dressed on manikins?
As I, for some obscure reason, feel dizzy and wierd whenever I walk near or past shop dummies, waxwork figures etc, even when I aren't concious that they're there, (Subconciously or not)!
Don't know why, but I do. I remember when I was at art college once and I felt dizzy whenever I went near a screen, only to find that there was a manikin behind it as an exhibition!
Nothing to do with fairy tales, I know, but it could hold some kind of instinctive answer to people reacting to clothed models. *think scary dolls with "dead eyes"!*

Si thi!

 

[Anonymous]

The New Zealand traditional Maori culture burn/dump the clothes of the recently dead and the bed clothes someone had died in. The clothes include all of the persons wardrobe not just the one's he or she was wearing at the time. This is part of quite a detailed ceremoney which includes blessing the place someone died in. I'm fairly sure the belief centres around not allowing the spirit of the deceased to become earthbound.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Carole, I have the book with the Victorian jacket story. It's a good one!

Spillage--the uniforms have not been on mannequins. They've been on racks in storage rooms and on non-mannequin forms in cases. But an interesting thought!

Hobbes--The Maori ritual would make sense--send all possessions with the dead so they don't have to come back for them. There is an ancient Greek story about a widower who had to burn an entire new wardrobe to placate his wife who had returned as a crying ghost. Apparently one sandal had fallen from her funeral pyre and she was limping around the afterlife without it.

 

[Anonymous]

I've just had a flash back from february 14th 1987. I watched this thing on the telly with my then boyfriend (we were only 13 so that should explain why we got so scared)....

It was about this couple (northerners I think) who had a haunted dressing gown - don't laugh ! It would hurl it'self at them and the zip would catch the woman on the back of the leg... when ever they tried to sleep in a room with it they would hear weird bells and other stuff I think..

It all stopped when they hung it up on a nail in one of the rooms of the house, and they had left it there ever since. They showed it on the programme and it was all covered in dust - it had been there for years and they were too afraid to move it in case it had all started again !

Does anyone else remember that programme ?

 

[brianellwood]

.

As I, for some obscure reason, feel dizzy and wierd whenever I walk near or past shop dummies, waxwork figures etc, even when I aren't concious that they're there, (Subconciously or not)!

I've posted about feeling this myself on another thread. For a long time I had a sense of "vacuum" whenever I came near a shop dummy or waxwork. The feeling has left me and I don't notice anything now.
We have a large collection of props in our drama group store - I'll ask the props mistress if she's had any wierd experiences with them.

 

[minordrag]

Haunted apparel

I've posted this story elsewhere, but a friend of mine once saw a glowing blue button-down shirt flap across the road in front of his car. Another friend told me that, when he was a kid there was a "ghost" who lived in his closet. When he or his sister would open the door, this entity would lean out and speak with them. He said it looked like a person, but was shaped wholly out of the clothes in their closet. He described it's voice as sounding like dried leaves.

What other stories are out there about haunted/animate clothing?

 

[Melf]

try here:-

[disabled link as threads are now merged- Quixote]

hope it helps?

 

[rynner2]

I once investigated a haunted house, and one of the visual apparitions reported was a child's dress, moving beyond a doorway as if a child wearing it was playing peek-a-boo...

It was an old fashioned type of dress, belted...

but the house was only built in the 60s, on land that had not been built on at all until after 1945.

(I'm pretty sure that I've reported this here before.)

 

[Anonymous]

I once investigated a haunted house, and one of the visual apparitions reported was a child's dress, moving beyond a doorway as if a child wearing it was playing peek-a-boo...
It was an old fashioned type of dress, belted...
but the house was only built in the 60s, on land that had not been built on at all until after 1945.
(I'm pretty sure that I've reported this here before.)

I once read a story of a group that investigated a haunting in the states concerning a ghost that haunted an area in a town. (As always, I can't remember any other information other than it was in the American West).The ghost would drag out clothing packed in attics or storage areas in houses as well as cry at night, always in the fall. Again, no building had been done in the area until recent times, so there appeared to be no source for a haunting. The group made contact with the ghost who turned out to have been a child who had died as her family traveled along the Oregon Trail by covered wagon heading to California. The family was large with many children and supposedly didn't have clothing to spare so the child was buried unclothed along the trail. She wanted something to keep her warm and that was why she would root through the boxes draping the clothes around but apparently unable to take anything back to her grave. The part that I had trouble believing was that they found her grave with it's almost unreadable wooden marker lying near it. They buried a blanket with the marker and she rested after that.
Point being, someone may have been buried in the area for an unknown reason, even though no one lived there.

 

[minordrag]

It was about this couple (northerners I think) who had a haunted dressing gown - don't laugh ! It would hurl it'self at them and the zip would catch the woman on the back of the leg...

That's a start, melf. Thanks--I'm touching cotton now.

I'm thinking about animated clothes; an outfit without a wearer or shoes with a mind of their own.

Thanks to HAARP for the quote!

 

[krobone]

Re: Haunted apparel

I've posted this story elsewhere, but a friend of mine once saw a glowing blue button-down shirt flap across the road in front of his car. Another friend told me that, when he was a kid there was a "ghost" who lived in his closet. When he or his sister would open the door, this entity would lean out and speak with them. He said it looked like a person, but was shaped wholly out of the clothes in their closet. He described it's voice as sounding like dried leaves.

What other stories are out there about haunted/animate clothing?

'Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You, My Lad' by M.R. James

http://www.fadl12200.pwp.blueyonder.co. ... rames.html

 

[Anonymous]

"I'm thinking about animated clothes; an outfit without a wearer or shoes with a mind of their own."

Uh, actually we have a local story about shoes. A local ghost hunter did a lecture at a library here about local hauntings, that's where I'd heard this story. (At last! Midnight can provide a source!)

There is an older brick home near New Munster, WI (yes, really), that had been rented by 4 twenty-something women. This home had an attic that was accessed via a stair case behind a door on the second floor. The ghost only acted up when there was one person home alone, didn't matter which one. It would walk the length of the house in the attic, masculine, heavy steps tromping up and down through the attic that ran the length of the house.
Finally one evening the woman who was home had had enough and she went to the attic door, determined to confront whatever, as it stomped it's way closest to the stairs. She opened the door and the footsteps halted for a moment.
And then a pair of men's heavy boots came stomping down the stairs toward her. You bet, she slammed the door and fled for the night, staying at a friend's house and she called each of her housemates to tell them what had happened and not to go home that night. The women made other living arrangements and then prepared to go move their possessions out. None of them wanted to stay in the house. They notified the landlord that they would be moving out, only to find that he had been trying to contact them. He lived within sight of the brick house, and he had been wondering why someone had collected all the shoes belonging to the four women and stacked them outside next to a shed near the house.

The ghost hunter had interviewed the women involved, but the landlord refused to let her onto the property since he was trying to sell it. It's still inhabited, I go past it often.

 

[escargot]

Ghosts AND shoes! That's another 'scarg-friendly combination, like ghosts AND trains! 8)

Midnight, that's a great story. How about a photo of the house?
(You've dropped yourself in it by bragging that you drive past it! )

 

[blakta2]

Re: Haunted apparel

when he was a kid there was a "ghost" who lived in his closet. When he or his sister would open the door, this entity would lean out and speak with them. He said it looked like a person, but was shaped wholly out of the clothes in their closet. He described it's voice as sounding like dried leaves.

What other stories are out there about haunted/animate clothing?

God Allmighty! Now that leaves a vivid image in my mind. Brrrrr! Creepy, but I LOVE it!

I haven't personally heard any other stories about haunted/animated clothing other than one. It was concerning a family that lived in the late 1800's.
It seemed their home became the center of some very frightening poltergeist activity. The Father was determined to outwit this "thing"
that was frightening the life out of his "women" and the help. He was sure that the activity had a mundane explaination and he set out to prove this. Anyhow...one day it seems they all came home to their clothing laid out to create the shapes of human bodies, etc. and I think at one point some of the clothing became animated. I'll try to search out the story.

~Kim~

 

[colpepper1]

An uncle who has obvious mediumistic qualities and a host of spooky tales, while resolutely not believing in ghosts, told me this. In the sixties while working as a forman in an old textile mill, one task was to get in before everyone else on the early shift (about 5.30 if I remember right) to check everything was okay. Among various phenomena -a heavy engineering bench once tilted in front of him. He thought the sudden movement was him fainting until it gently lowered- he noted the row of brown workers overalls moving as though the pockets were being rifled through by an unseen hand, one after another.

 

[minordrag]

And then a pair of men's heavy boots came stomping down the stairs toward her.

Okay. That scares the hell out of me.

Animated clothing is exponentially creepier than disembodied footsteps or filmy apparitions. Don't know why.

 

[Anonymous]

Ghosts AND shoes! That's another 'scarg-friendly combination, like ghosts AND trains! 8)
Midnight, that's a great story. How about a photo of the house?
(You've dropped yourself in it by bragging that you drive past it! )

I'll see what I can do. I noticed they tore the shed down recently. I don't think I have the nerve to knock on the door and ask if I can take a picture of their house but I might be able to do something surreptitiously.

 

[Anonymous]

eek, I remember dancing, empty clothes in some early disney flick - bedknobs and broomsticks?

Scared the bejeebers out of me. Don't tell me that happens..

 

[Anonymous]

Wouldn't it be great if this happened and someone caught it on video!!!!! Not a dodgy one, a nice clear one. THese days "Point and shoot " digital miniDV/disc camcorders are excellent for removing the excuses from the old methods of capture.
I expect to see more of this now the technology is freely available...(If any of this is a reality and not simply due to fakery, subjectivity or attention seeking fabrication!)
Here's waiting in anticipation

 

[Anonymous]

Wouldn't it be great if this happened and someone caught it on video!!!!! Not a dodgy one, a nice clear one. THese days "Point and shoot " digital miniDV/disc camcorders are excellent for removing the excuses from the old methods of capture.
I expect to see more of this now the technology is freely available...(If any of this is a reality and not simply due to fakery, subjectivity or attention seeking fabrication!)
Here's waiting in anticipation

I never said anything like, "I've seen this with my own eyes and I have unlimited access to the property and state of the art equipment to prove it with, so you must believe me."
What I said was:

"Uh, actually we have a local story about shoes. A local ghost hunter did a lecture at a library here about local hauntings, that's where I'd heard this story."

I'll be sure not to post anything that I can't prove with hard evidence anymore.

 

[rynner2]

I carry a digital camera with me most of the time - it can also take video clips.

But so often, things just happen so quickly that you don't have time to get a pic! And I'm talking about ordinary things here - when something apparently paranormal happens, you're even less likely to remember your camera!

I was intrigued by the Paris Concorde crash - because, although it happened in an area full of tourists (with cameras) in transit, very little footage of the incident was recorded.

The normal reaction of someone confronted with the unusual is (sadly!) to Gawp, not to reach for their camera!

 

[Anonymous]

Arrrr! I wasn't referring to you, just people in general.
The Concorde disaster wouldn't have provoked a response like get out camera clicky clicky..(Although it did in at least one instance!)..But such repeated events like clothing moving and/or things floating about or spectres appearing, it's a different thing.
"You cannot record on tape what happens in the mind's eye..."

 

[Anonymous]

Arrrr! I wasn't referring to you, just people in general.
The Concorde disaster wouldn't have provoked a response like get out camera clicky clicky..(Although it did in at least one instance!)..But such repeated events like clothing moving and/or things floating about or spectres appearing, it's a different thing.
"You cannot record on tape what happens in the mind's eye..."

Ah, sorry, bit quick on the trigger there.
As it's been said on other threads, though, could anyone produce an image that would be substantial enough to satisfy the skeptics, but not so perfect as to have people cocking their heads and saying, "Yes, definetly photoshop. You can tell, right there....."
I'm doubtful. :?

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Haunted apparel

Another friend told me that, when he was a kid there was a "ghost" who lived in his closet. When he or his sister would open the door, this entity would lean out and speak with them. He said it looked like a person, but was shaped wholly out of the clothes in their closet. He described it's voice as sounding like dried leaves.

Oh my god, I had those things! Several of them, in fact. It was between the ages of 2-6 years old. That's so weird - no one else I've ever met has had anything like that before. The "beings" used to scare me a lot, but only afterwards. I don't remember being scared while these events were occurring. Afterwards, however, I would get absolutely terrified.

Wow, geezus, I'm getting shivers up my spine as I write this. To this day the whole thing really scares me. I have no idea what it means.

 

[escargot]

Midnight, you could pretend to take a snap of your car in the street but point t'camera at the house instead.

You could do it so quickly that nobody'd have time to spot you, and the excuse only need arise afterwards.

James Bond music plays in background

One of my 'true ghost' books has a haunted garment story. It's a woman's jacket, very old, which is being used as a theatrical costume. Whoever wears it feels as if she's being strangled. :shock:

 

[minordrag]

Re: Haunted apparel

I don't remember being scared while these events were occurring. Afterwards, however, I would get absolutely terrified.

yurei, that is similar to my friend's reaction. He said that the entity was friendly; offering advice and protecting the kids from the really bad thing that lived out in the yard. He and his sister looked forward to its visits. It was only later, when he remembered the encounters and confirmed with his sister that it wasn't fantasy that it scared the sh*t out of him.

Was your entity made up out of clothes? Did you grow up in some hell-hole in Georgia like my friend?

 

[Anonymous]

Midnight, you could pretend to take a snap of your car in the street but point t'camera at the house instead.
One of my 'true ghost' books has a haunted garment story. It's a woman's jacket, very old, which is being used as a theatrical costume. Whoever wears it feels as if she's being strangled. :shock:

The house is close enough to the highway that it could be snapped from an open car window. I just need to borrow a friend's digital camera.
That haunted jacket story is creepy.

"yurei, that is similar to my friend's reaction. He said that the entity was friendly; offering advice and protecting the kids from the really bad thing that lived out in the yard. He and his sister looked forward to its visits. It was only later, when he remembered the encounters and confirmed with his sister that it wasn't fantasy that it scared the sh*t out of him. Was your entity made up out of clothes?"

That's fascinating, from the fact that the kids originally thought the entity was imaginary to the idea that it was protecting them. I wonder if it was using the clothes in an attempt to create an appearance that wouldbe somewhat familiar and not frightening?

 

[escargot]

The book with the jacket story is here but due to house alterations it's hidden under a pile of junk in the back bedroom. I will retrieve it and scan the relevant pages as soon as I can. 8)