Monday 19 May 2014

A silly post for posterity


Okay, this is a completely and utterly random post.  But the other night I was looking at 1950's dresses on Pinterest (yes, I do that a lot, whatever).  And then just out of curiosity I looked up 1990's fashions to see what was on there for my high school years.  And all that I found was stuff like this:

It kind of bugged me, because while I remember my older brothers and sisters dressing like that, and like off of Friends (the other big result along with Fresh Prince of Bel Air styles), I didn't.  That was out before I hit high school.
This was more in style by the time I hit high school. (An extreme style, but I definitely saw it all the time.) Anyway, after searching a bit, styles popularized by Clueless came up.  But I didn't dress like that either.  Maybe Cher's clothing was simply too extremely girly/immodest of fashion for small town North Dakota?  Anyway, I did find an article discussing the forgotten years of 1998-2002, which made me laugh, because they pointed out in the article how nobody has a good name for those years but it definitely was a distinct style from the rest of the 90's and 2000's.  And yep, I graduated in 2000 from high school and that was what I remembered being in fashion.  So for posterity's sake, here's the anti-hipster/skinny jean style I grew up with.

Wide leg jeans.  Yes, I thought this was ridiculous even while I saw people wearing it, but I did see kids wearing it.


The ever present Airwalks and Doc Martens, as opposed to Toms?  

 Flair jeans and sweaters with stripes.  



 The perpetual problem of Kayli's and mine was finding at least mid rise pants (as opposed to what you see these girls wearing and longer shirts.  Derek and Megan would continually ask us to raise our arms to see if our stomachs remained covered.  Sigh.  I think the layering tees of the mid-2000s is the result of this.  Every girl trying to be modest had the same problem and then spaghetti strap tanks in the early 2000's just made the layering tees even more needed.



I pretty sure Kayli had a khaki skirt almost identical to the one above. 

 Yep, I had a choker or two as well.

I LOVED when capris came in style because then I had something modest to wear as opposed NO shorts that were long enough. I also loved that 3/4 length sleeves came in style.  

 I loved that shirt--except it was so short!!!

Kayli in 3/4 length sleeve.
 I think Kayli had running shoes extremely similar to the ones on the right. 
I had a pair of khakis from American Eagle really similar to those on the right too.


And I even found a picture of the exact pair of the boots I owned in high school.  I'm wearing them in the top picture.  I finally gave them away to some charity organization that was gathering shoes, just because they were so heavy I could only wear them for a little while before my feet started cramping and hurting like crazy.  In high school, I just lived with it to be in style.  ;)
Anyway, I know everyone probably has a soft spot for the fashion and music of their teen years (I even read an article once about research that showed that music imprints on teen's brains more than at any other time--so music of their teen years almost always remained their favorite, or at least had the most emotional connection too.) And I fall into that too, I guess, because I really overall like the styles of my teenage/college years, minus some of the extremes.  However, I am so grateful to be an adult now and not be so fenced in by the teenage styles, and also for the internet, because then you can find more of what you want instead of being boxed in by what's in your local stores.  

End random post.  Chao.



5 comments:

Andrea said...

Interesting. One random grammar note--you don't put an apostrophe in dates. In the 1980s, not in the 1980's.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

Andrea said...

And now I feel bad because I left out a comma in the my grammar correction sentence. Grr.

Kayli said...

I can't think of a comment because I already talked to you on the phone. But this was a fun little flashback post.

Natalie said...

I totally remember those Doc Martin sandals. Everyone had those! I always coveted those.

Lynn said...

Great post! Great piece of history! I too remember this "era". lol. Being frugal that I am.....my daughters and I always shared clothes. Being the kind mother, that I am, I always let them pick the style, and I would just wear them. Oh boy. Glad those styles were short lived. Yes! Speaking of short....those short shirts were a pain! No long shirts anywhere it seemed. I remember the young women choristers that led the music in Sacrament meeting. Their mid sections always exposed while leading the music. Ugh. I imagine that is probably why we no longer had the youth or young women leading the music shortly after a few months of that. ; )