Every six months or so, I empty my wardrobe and cull anything that is unlikely to be worn again. I’ll start with the colourful items that have snuck in during a temporary attempt to wear clothes other than black and move on to the pairs of jeans with ripped seams, adding a jumper that has seen better days and a shirt that I didn’t like much even when I first brought it home from the op-shop.

Consequently, my wardrobe is endlessly rotating. Clothes come and go without much fanfare and I’m rarely sentimental about them, preferring to hoard stacks of letters and postcards steeped in history that don’t have the unfortunate tendency to go out of style or no longer fit.

The pants that were once magic.

But there is one item of clothing that has been with me since the late 1990s. Buried deep behind a cream cabled cardigan that doubles as a doona when it’s cold, this pair of woollen pants with a fine white stripe have moved from house to house, finding their way back into the wardrobe each time, despite not being worn for over 20 years. They are semi-fitted with a sailor-style buttoned front and wide legs, and........

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