I don’t think I ever had anything I pined after as a child, but one jacket was my pride and joy as a teenager, and it got left on a bus bench Sophomore year of high school, never to return. It was a catholic school uniform jacket that I bought at a yard sale for $2. I replaced all the buttons with vintage stuff, sewed old pieces of polka-dot tights around the cuffs, and added zippers, patches, and pins in various other parts.
It wasn’t that impressive, but I think it was a fair representation of me actually getting some design sense involved in the clothes I made instead of just slapping whatever the fuck I could find wherever the fuck I felt like it.
I did, of course, feel properly contrite about committing the sin of visually-friendly DIYing. I mean, punk rock is about anything but good design. As a rule. Which is ironic, when you think of how much good design comes from punk. Far more than grunge, or (cringe) metal by contrast. Punk is probably one of the most well-designed musical genres. Personally, I attribute this to the themes coming mostly out of dadaism and surrealism, rather than a political or cultural zeitgeist like most other musical scenes.
I still think about that jacket. It’s probably one of the only things I’ve ever lost (outside of my childhood dog Oso) that I truly pine after and hope furtively that it found a good home with someone else. I made tons of other clothes, but I gave them away willingly, either to friends or thrift stores, so I never felt bad about them leaving my possession. The idea of it being alone in the world is so much worse than the idea of someone else having it. If that makes any sense.