Right now I dress in a rapper/ skater sort of way for instance today it was a faded pair of blue jeans sagged low of course but not to the extreme, Navy Blue Ecko Unlimited T Shirt size 2X, Chain swinging from the pocket, Emerica Skate Shoes, a white sweatband on my wrist with a black watch over it, a silver necklace blinging from my neck . I go shopping anywhere not just brand name places but no matter where I get my clothes the look I am going for is about the same it’s like I’m auditioning for rap city, that’s the way my aunt likes to describe it.
I don’t doubt that at some point the way I dress will completely change because even now I like to get dressed up by wearing suits and ties. I would just like to know this…describe what you dressed like when you were younger and what you dress like now and at what point did you change and why, was it a conscious decision? Did you do it because the look you had before didn’t fit you as you got older?
For example maybe you were a Goth when you were younger but now your clean cut or perhaps even the other way around.
Well, I dress about the same way I always have and I’m 46. But I never “trend dressed” except for any way jeans and a t-shirt might be considered a trend. But consider others of my era (think of discomania), I don’t see too many people wearing platform shoes, leisure suits, shirts with HUGE collars, etc…
It may be when you’re my age, you’ll look back and think… “I wore that!!!”.
I’ve rarely “trend-dressed,” either. For one thing, while I’m not particularly large, trendy things just don’t fit on me like they do on the skinny little things they’re advertised on. A good example: low-rider jeans and slacks. Ugh. I hate, hate, hate these. For one thing, it’s not professional or attractive for anyone to see my ass crack when I bend over, and for another, they’re often very snug in the thighs. My thighs are really muscular from years of running, and often look very bad in pants that aren’t straight cut. Another example: those shirts that have gathers in the middle and a slightly plunge neckline. I’ve got large boobs, so I wind up looking like Pamela Anderson.
Usually I wear jeans, but I work at home. However, now that I’m 28, I’ve noticed that, as I grow older, I’m less likely to run out of the house in a pair of jeans or sweats and a t-shirt, even if I’m just going to the supermarket. I usually throw on a pair of khakis or a pair of casual but nice trousers. I’m afraid that I’ve realized my mom was right: in most cases, when you’re younger, you can get away with jeans, because usually your body is a bit fitter, and you manage to look good in them without looking too sloppy. But when you get older, you start looking more disheveled, and jeans stop fitting as well as they used to. Also, wearing well-made clothes shows off your figure better, and when you wear jeans and a t-shirt, you just can’t really see any curves or much of a distinction between your boobs and your waist, so you wind up looking larger and less curvy than you are, and instead it appears that from your boobs to your legs, you’re all the same size (or at least that’s what happens to me). So I personally feel far more comfortable and attractive in a pair of well-cut pants or a casual skirt rather than loose jeans and tops.
Another non-trend dresser here. I’ve never had the disposable income to fling much of it into the clothing-trend-of-the-month, so when I buy clothes, it’s basic equipment that I’ll be wearing for years.
As for how I’ve changed clothing styles growing up…when I was a teen it was jeans and a concert T-shirt, these days I have discovered the power of pantyhose, heels, and skirts. But I don’t have to look back and be embarrassed about anything (except my hair)!
I’m an engineer. People have low expectations of my fashion sense and I don’t disappoint. Actually in my younger days I wore dress pants and shirt every day. Now it’s jeans and a polo shirt most days.
Tell me about it! I have really curly hair, and teased it out to several inches around my head, and had “the claw” for bangs. You know, where you curl part of your bangs up and part of it under? Ugh.
And I am so glad that I never got through a leg-warmer phase. Those were UGLY!
I was a goth/punk (back in the early eighties the lines weren’t as clearly defined as they are now) in high school. Now I’m an engineer rapidly approaching 40. :eek: My clothing style has changed depending on where I am. At work, I wear classicly tailored stuff in black or grey and interesting shoes. When I graduated from college (a fairly long process for me) and got a real job, I tried to find a work appropriate look that makes me comfortable.
Off work, I wear low slung pants and tight tank tops to show off my back tat. Which is kinda trendy. I still go poke around Hot Topic sometimes and feel like the oldest person in the world. I worry about trying to dress too young (because I like a lot of teenage fashions). I just saw this woman at my last regatta who was obviously in her mid to late forties (but very well maintained with a very good figure) who was wearing black zippered pants and a turquoise tube top with a loose knit mesh sweater over it. It looked like a older woman’s interpretation of what the “kids’” might wear and it was kinda embarrassing. I told all my friends to stage and intervention if I ever got that bad…
As a student in the 80’s it was t-shirts & jeans. In the corporate world it went to shirts, ties, and suits. As I progressed up the geek world from programmer at an insurance company to Alpha Geek at a software development house, it has swung back to t-shirts and jeans. My proud fact is that I wear the same size jeans in 2004 that I wore in 1984.
My clothing style has changed between high school and college, but I have a reason. I went to Catholic school. A unflatterning unifrom that made me look like hell, in colors that didn’t match. Right after I left school, I knew I needed new clothes, as I owned two pairs of jeans and a pair of dockers. All of the shirts I bought in the begining were brightly colored, as a revolt against the dull plaid. I shocked my best friend by starting to wear vibrant red.
Now, two years into no uniforms, I can dress like I have always wanted to, but never could. I wear button shirts, in nice plaids or tiny floral prints, when practical, well, as a chemist, that isn’t quite true. I wear them when my fear of acid stains is lower than normal. And, happily, I finally obtained dark blue jeans. Which, I feel the need to exclaim to the world, are four sizes smaller than they were in high school.
Well I have to say the OP’s description of what he was wearing made me LOL, thus proving that I am WAY OLD.
Former gothy/punk person here. I probably abandoned most of my teen-fashion sense when I was 17 and moved to Germany to be an exchange student. I simply could not continue to dress the way I had been and make any friends at all. Plus the goth scene wasn’t really in effect in northern Germany 1991, so there wasn’t any reference for people to compare me to and I was just a complete freak there instead of stylish. I had punk friends but there were no goths. So after a year there I had changed quite a bit. It hurt when I came back to the states and my former best friend wouldn’t speak to me anymore because I no longer looked cool and goth, but fuck her anyway. Then in college I was still mostly punky and goth, but it just wasn’t as important to me, so I think I looked more like a regular college student than anything. Jeans and a black T-shirt with Doc Martens, for example.
But even that faded as I realized that if I wanted to go anywhere with a career I would have to dress a bit more professionally.
Of course as I type this I realize I’m wearing black shoes and socks, black pinstripe pants and a black shirt with a black bra. So maybe old habits die hard…
:’[ <–little crying vampire goth
In high school and for a couple of years after, I went back and forth between goth and punk and a bit of hippie. For a while I had a blue-black mohawk, then in my senior year I started shaving my head, and kept that up for about a year or so. Most of my clothes were probably pretty unflattering, and in some ways I’m relieved that there aren’t a whole lot of pictures of me from those years. Not because of the styles (I still think they’re cool), but because I didn’t know how to dress my body in a way that suited it.
Around the time I turned 21, I started dressing less extremely, style-wise. These days (I’m 31) I wear a lot of clothes from Torrid, but not necessarily all the zippers and laces and such. I stick mostly to black pants, capris, knee-length skirts, and tank tops. And way too many black t-shirts. I still wear a lot of black eyeliner and the only (piercing) jewelry I’ve taken out is the barbell in my tongue.
My hair is pretty conservative (boring) right now because it’s been super-short and I’m trying to grow it out a little. And I stopped dying it last year so I could see if I have any grey (I don’t) and if it’s the same kick-ass dark auburn as my kid’s hair. (It’s close, but not nearly as rich. People are always commenting to me about his hair color, but never mine.)
I have worn the same “style” for many years. I am a jeans-and-tshirt girl and have been since high school (I graduated in 94) I still wear jeans and tshirts.
Occasionally I will pair a nice button up blouse ( I am very picky about the collar style- no buttons that go all the way up) or girly top with my jeans. I will get all dressed up for going out to a really nice resteraunt or a job interview.
I hate to wear what I call stuffy office clothes; slacks, chinos, suits (anything that has to be dry cleaned or ironed) and the like. I feel like a friggin JCrew ad when dressed like that. I hate business office attire, talk about uncomfortable and I despise skirts and panty hose with a passion (I hate pantyhose so much so that I didnt any with my wedding dress!- OK maybe TMI there…)
I have never followed “trendy fashion”, why bother spending all that money on clothes that will "so last fill in the blank ". Anyway, the trendy fashion of today can’t be worn (or shouldn’t be worn) by anyone over age 18 (or by a pop star). Like others mentioned, when I buy certain clothes, tshitrts excluded, I like to buy quality items that won’t look outdated in 6 months.
I graduated college in 1980. Oddly enough, I was probably dressier then than I am now. I favored corduroy pants, almost never jeans, and corduroy sport jackets.
Presently I don’t like any outerwear more than a sweater, because if I wear a jacket and need to take it off, I might have to carry on my arm. A sweater can be tied around the waist.
Presently I prefer jeans, and I know some might think I’m approaching the upper age limit of acceptability there. But I’m actually in better shape now than I was then, and then jeans do have what I think are practical and esthetic advantages. First the practical: (1) Things don’t fall out of the hip pockets when I sit down, particularly in a car. (2) I can actually use the back pocket for my wallet, and know that a little hole won’t develop at the corner of the pocket. That always used to happen to me with slacks until I stopped using the back
pockets. (3) Just general strength and sturdiness.
As for the esthetic advantages, well, it’s mostly fit, color, and texture. I love the texture of jeans, as well as the classic indigo color. I’m on the slender side, and jeans just fit me better. In any context where I can get away with casual attire, khakis just don’t do it for me. They’re just too bland–IMO of course.
Overlyverbose, your post make me sad, for that seems like such an outdated view. My wife was in her mid-40s when we met, and I thought she looked hot in jeans.
So my short answer to the OP is, I think I’m progressing backwards. It scares me to think of where this might lead. 
though today as I write this I actually am wearing a suit that I recently bought.
Efforts to “get” and “keep” a job* with any kind of regularity with seriously mess up your personal style and self-expression. Get used to the idea right now.
*that doesn’t incorparate the phrases, “Would you like fries with that?”, “Please keep hands and feet in the car while the ride is in motion” or requires a rubber glove and toilet brush
I beg to differ: the kind of jobs you mention usually actually require uniforms; in my neck of the woods better jobs usually give you a lot more freedom in choosing what to wear. Of course, that could just be the kind of work I do and the kind of companies I have worked for.
In high-school, I was a drama geek and wearing black head-to-toe just seemed to go with the territory. I was teen-trendy, meaning I didn’t wear what was in Glamour or Vogue but I did wear what I saw on my friends.
Now, I rarely wear black and I’m usually the most dressed up person at work (I work in a lab). The transition between the two was very gradual. IIRC, the first change was shoes. I discoverd that I really liked girly shoes. Then, the girly shoes looked better with better pants. Then, I discovered that a nice top really showed off my boobs. You get the point, it was never a concious decision, it just evolved.
I was born in a T-shirt, jeans, and elastic sided boots, I think. Will die in same.
I tried to be “cool” or in fashion in my kid days, the Mod thing in the 60s, deisgner jeans in the disco years blah blah blah. Now, I don’t care anymore. Beat up blue jeans, worn out sweat shirt, and I’m happy. After a while you just don’t care anymore, as long as it’s comfortable.
I was mostly a jeans and t-shirt girl, and liked to wear slightly off-beat stuff too. I was never much good at fashion.
Now, I still wear jeans and t-shirts, but more often I’ll wear crop pants and a plain t-shirt (as opposed to one with “Fresh Cheese” emblazoned upon it), or pants and a shirt of some type. The t-shirts with pictures on them usually scream “I’m a mommy librarian!” – I have two with Max the Bunny, and a couple of ‘super-librarian’-themed shirts. And so on.
So, I’m still not much good at fashion, and I still dress casually, but I try to look something like an adult instead of a teenager who forgot that she’s over 25 now.
I was a jeans-and-t-shirt girl in high school and throughout college, and even managed to get a job where jeans-and-t-shirt is perfectly acceptable. After almost 5 years of that, I recently started dressing up more, in slacks/skirts and blouses instead. I had a couple reasons for this:
- I wanted people to start taking me more seriously at work
- I wanted me to take work more seriously
- Jeans and t-shirts never really looked all that great on my anyway, and
- I’d probably been watching more What Not To Wear than was good for me.
What happened was:
- They did, although I think it may have had less to do with the clothes than with …
- I did - I think being more dressed up at work helped me to have a more professional attitude toward it, which meant I was more productive, and …
- I also found that decently tailored clothes were a lot more flattering to my figure than jeans and unisex-cut t-shirts, and knowing that I looked good was a real boost to my self-confidence. Oh yeah, and …
- I still watch WNTW now and then, but not as much as before.