There is something sad about clothes laid in a tomb of trunks.

Hear the lament of Suzy Menkes, who gazed upon the remnants of forgotten finery and declared: “There is something sad about clothes laid in a tomb of trunks.” These words, though simple, are heavy with sorrow and wisdom. They speak of beauty once alive, now silenced; of garments that once adorned bodies, witnessed laughter, love, and triumph, now hidden away in dark containers, deprived of the light of memory.

The clothes in their trunks are not mere fabrics. They are vessels of stories, woven with the threads of human life. Each dress once moved with breath, each coat carried warmth through storms, each suit bore dignity at gatherings. To shut them away is to seal fragments of human spirit in silence. The tomb Menkes describes is not only for fabric, but for the lives attached to them, now buried without voice. Thus, her sorrow is not for cloth alone, but for the fading of memory, for the treasures of the past abandoned to dust.

The ancients understood this mourning well. In the pyramids of Egypt, pharaohs were buried with splendid robes, gold-threaded garments meant to serve them in the afterlife. Yet those clothes, lying thousands of years in darkness, were robbed of the movement of life, their splendor unseen until unearthed by archaeologists. Their beauty, preserved yet forgotten, whispered the same sadness Menkes named—that beauty without witness becomes a ghost.

We see also the story of Marie Antoinette’s wardrobe, hidden away after her fall. The gowns that once graced the courts of Versailles, symbols of excess and elegance, lay unseen, reminders of a life abruptly silenced. To gaze upon them later was not only to marvel at their craftsmanship, but to feel the ache of history—the knowledge that they once moved in candlelit halls now long extinguished. So too, when clothes are sealed in trunks, they become relics of absence rather than celebrations of life.

But Menkes’s words are not only sorrowful; they are also a warning. They remind us that objects gain their meaning not in possession, but in use. A gown in a trunk is silent, but worn, it sings. A coat folded away is mute, but draped upon shoulders, it speaks of warmth and presence. To hoard beauty without living it is to deny it its purpose. The sadness lies not in the garment itself, but in the refusal to let it fulfill the life it was made for.

The lesson, then, is profound: do not bury your treasures. Whether they are clothes, talents, dreams, or words, do not seal them away in the tomb of fear, procrastination, or nostalgia. Use them. Live in them. Let them serve their purpose before time turns them into relics of what might have been. For beauty locked away is no better than beauty lost.

Therefore, let all who hear take this counsel: open the trunks of your life. Wear the garments, play the music, speak the words, take the journeys. Do not leave them for moths and dust, do not let them be buried before you are. The tomb of trunks is not only for fabric, but for every unlived dream. Do not let your life be such a trunk.

Thus, the teaching endures: there is indeed something sad about clothes laid in a tomb of trunks, for it is the sadness of potential never fulfilled, of beauty silenced before its time. Live, then, in fullness, in motion, in presence. For the true purpose of beauty is not preservation, but life itself.