The Miracle Fiber

It was in the time of Disco, and the miracle fiber, polyester was everywhere: from outlandish clothing, to sheets, blankets, upholstery, you name it!

It was claimed that it could be worn for 68 days straight without having to be washed, it never wrinkled and never needed to be ironed…it could simply be aired out, shaken out and worn again.

Living in those dark days, I was way too familiar with the material. One of my older brothers was heavily into the whole Disco thing (probably because his girlfriend was into it as well) and he had the polyester suits, quinoa shirts (which opened to the third button, and had wide lapels) along with the two-toned platform shoes!

He even used a plastic sheet, spread out on the living room floor to learn how to Hustle…but that’s another story.

The point is that there was no natural fiber involved.

Although I looked up to all of my brothers (and brother in-law for that matter), I did care for Disco, and hated polyester! Regardless, most of my clothes were polyester: my shirts, pants, jackets and Sunday going to church suits. I even had polyester socks…and they were hot!

The worst was the Leisure Suit that my mother bought me for Easter in 1975 or 76!

It was about a week before Easter, my mom wanted to go shopping for my Easter clothes…this was the last thing that I wanted to do! I wanted to stay home and do whatever I did when I was twelve. So, she went on her own, though getting her to relent was not an easy task. However, as it worked out, going along probably would not have made any difference!

A few hours later, when she returned from shopping, she called me down to the TV room (yes, we had one, my dad and brother in law built it themselves – converting an old porch) to show me what I was going to be wearing to church on Easter morning! When I saw it, I knew I was in deep need of God’s Grace!

It was powder-blue, and made of a thick polyester that reminded me of the living room curtains! The buttons were dark blue with a white border, and I was horrified!

My mother was a smart woman, but it wasn’t too hard to tell that I hated the suit, so she showed me what made it extra special: it was reversible! When pulled inside-out, the suit had a blue and white herringbone pattern! For some reason, she thought this would lead me to change my mine!

Or maybe she was just messing with me…I would not put that past her either.

I didn’t want to even touch it, not to mention wear it, but my mother made me, and my dad knew better than to dissent. So, on Easter, my friends had a great opportunity to tease the shit out of me! Although it was 1975 and such outfits were not uncommon, this suit was still beyond the pale!

My brothers also teased me, as I had to wear the thing all the way through our family dinner, although they were a bit nicer about it…they knew my pain.

I wore the suit twice, and then it magically ‘disappeared’ never to be seen or made fun of again! Though given the nature of the material, I assume the suit still survives, buried under 40 years of trash in a forgotten New Jersey landfill.

Even after the leisure suit was gone, I could not escape the clutches of the miracle fabric.

For many years, I served as an acolyte at my church, which meant that I had to dress up in a choir robe every Sunday morning! This too was also made out of the miracle fiber, green with a white cassock over the top. And, because I could not wear jeans to church, I was usually wearing layers of polyester, along with my nice pleather shoes.

During the colder weather it was not too bad, but during the summer these gowns could be horrific! There was no A/C in the church (we’ll come back to this later), and when it was really bad, it was hard to function. On occasion, the pastor gave us all a break by letting us eschew the robes, I guess he decided that wearing our street clothes was better than watching us pass-out from the heat.

Even the cloth that covered the plate of communion wine on the altar was made of polyester! This proved problematic on the morning that my acolyte partner (who was also the pastor’s daughter) was lighting the candles, and the wick from the candle-lighter fell onto the cloth and it burst into flames! She panicked and knocked that plate on the floor, setting the carpeting on fire! The pastor ran over and started stamping out the fire, which made his own polyester robe burst into flames!!

I stood there in a panic, not knowing what to do, but then no one did, except for the elderly sexton! He was crippled with arthritis, which caused him to move slowly on swollen knees. While everyone else was frozen, he grabbed a fire extinguisher, made his way up the center aisle, and calmly put out the fire!

Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the pastor’s Alb was beyond hope! However, he was able to continue the service, once the excitement was over!

It was in that same church, a couple of years later, that one of my other brothers got married.

It was late August, and still no A/C (note, I went back to the church in 2018, and it remains free of air-conditioning)! For some ungodly reason, it was decided that the men in the wedding party were to wear dark brown (rented) tuxedos, made out of that same thick polyester as the leisure suit! The shirt was also polyester, had ruffles, and I wore a clip-on bowtie and a cummerbund!

The church was built in the late 50’s, in that ‘modern’ style which screams out for central air, so there was no cross-ventilation, and this was New Jersey in the summer – so it was stiflingly oppressive inside, and we were all feeling it in our heavy brown tuxedos! My brother felt it the worst, he was so nervous, he would have been sweating had it been the dead of winter. I am actually surprised that he did not actually pass-out that day…but we made it through!

While I could not take off the tux until after the reception, the hall was airconditioned, and it felt great to walk in through those doors and feel the cool air, after the church service and photographs…and to finally take off the jacket!

By the mid-80s polyester had mostly fallen out of favor for most people, but it was still popular for rented tuxedos! The last time I wore one was in 1986 at the marriage of two of my friends. It was another summer wedding, this time outdoors, in upstate New York! While it was not as hot, it was still very humid, and wearing those suits was rough!

This time, we had powder-blue tuxedos that had no natural fiber, and we wore shoes that did not contain a hint of leather, so I was basically encased in plastic! It did not help that the shoes were a size too narrow (I do have very wide feet), or that I had not slept and was very hung-over from partying the night before.

It was an Orthodox Christian service, which was very neat to be a part of, but it also seemed very long, especially while we were standing unsteadily in the Sunlight…sweating!

After the wedding were the photos, taken out on a big terrace, the view was beautiful, but it was still hot! Once the reception started, we wound up going in and out of the air conditioning, and I got drunk all over again, which made me not care as much about being so miserable, and I was able to lose the jacket and loosen my tie, which helped! While it cooled off once the Sun went down, it stayed sticky and uncomfortable; however, the alcohol surely took the edge off! It was another all-nighter, and as the Sun came up, I found myself alone in the woods, still wearing the tuxedo and the tight shoes!

I remember how good it felt when I finally took those shoes off, and dipped my feet in the stream as dawn broke. I also remember looking up and seeing a deer drinking from the same stream, it stopped, lifted its head, and looked at me before moving away; however, I suspect that this part was really from a movie I saw, and not a real memory.

I do know that it was nice to get out of that nasty tux and put on my street clothes again, before climbing into the back of a pickup for the drive back home. I had to keep my head down to avoid being seen by the cops, and wound up falling asleep for most of the ride…which was just fine.

After graduation, I wound up working on “Wall Street” (42 Broadway) where I had to wear a suit every day. This was common work attire in the 80’s, and there were still many of us who still wore polyester…like a guy I knew who would wear the same pair of plaid pants every day (or so I thought, until I found out that he had 6 pairs of the pants, and wore a different one every day).

I wore my polyester suits because I didn’t have much money, and had to wear what I had, which was polyester. No, I did not wear any leisure suits, these were gone, but what I did have was not great! Fortunately, once I had gotten a few paychecks, a friend and his wife (I could not trust my mother and had no girlfriend) took me out to buy some nicer suits, made of more natural fibers.

I was finally done with polyester…or so I thought!

Even into the 90s, my mother insisted on buying me a pairs of dark brown polyester pants for Christmas (almost) every year! I returned many of these for a refund, but kept a couple as ‘emergency’ pants, only wearing them when nothing else was clean…which was great motivation for me to go to the laundromat on a regular basis! When I complained about getting yet another pair, a friend told me to tell my mom that I could not wear them to work because the static electricity generated by the polyester would short out the computers!

I laughed, but actually considered telling her that the crash of ’87 occurred become someone wore polyester to the stock exchange on that Black Monday!

The brown polyester pants finally stopped coming by the time my daughter was born, I am guessing my sister said something to her, as her gifts became more practical. I’ve made plenty of fashion faux pas all by myself in the years since, but the time of polyester had finally ended.

While a visit to the site “People of Walmart” proves that some folks still prefer the ease and colors provided by polyester clothing, most clothes today have a blend of material, are far more comfortable and just plain look better!

However, for he most part the thick, inflexible material that was so common during the time of Disco, has become a thing of the past, and the past is where it needs to stay!

Polyester truly is a miracle fabric, which will never degrade, and has helped our lives better, one of the true miracles is that the thick, brightly colored fabric ever became so popular in the first place.

And even today, there is still a bit of polyester with us all: the shirt I am wearing as I write this, designed to wick away moisture, is…100% polyester!