Old Trunks Old Stories

When I first laid eyes on the circus clown trunk, I froze for a moment. The red-nosed clown staring upside down across the front felt like more than decoration. It felt like a fragment of a lost world — an old fairground life. Chests aren’t just places to keep things. They’re pieces of history. Before cheap mass storage appeared, trunks were the way people travelled. Built solid, heavy duty, sometimes decorated with brass corners or art station website painted lettering. I still think about when the circus came to town once a year.

Posters glued to walls promised elephants, storage trunk fire breathers, acrobats — and always clowns. Looking at the trunk feels like it was there backstage, stuffed with costumes and props, waiting for cheap vintage trunk the show to begin.