# Are there really places stuck in a fashion time warp? (and an experiment) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 11, 2005, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083 "2005-12-11T01:06:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/1 "2005-12-11T01:06:57Z")
I grew up in a city that has a reputation as being several years behind the times when it comes to fashion, hairstyles, pop culture and zeitgeist. In my high school years, whenever I saw a movie intended for a teenage audience, it seemed that the fashions and hairstyles of the actors were a LOT different than what I saw on the streets of my city. I’m not talking about standards of physical beauty, but just an overall presentation. Given the Internet, network television shows, nationally distributed magazines, national chain stores, and other things that are shrinking and homogenizing the country in a virtual sense, I wonder how fashion and personal style in some areas can still seem behind the times. A kid growing up today in Wichita or Tulsa will have access to what is mostly the same mall stores, same MTV and Fuse, and same fashion and youth culture magazines as someone their peers in suburban LA and New York, yet those flyover cities and many others are seen as being stuck in someting of a time warp. Here’s an experiment. Below are links to photos from different high school yearbooks. (I’m not in either one of them, FWIW.) What year does it look like each of the photos were taken? [Yearbook photo 1](http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?image=yearbook18fj.jpg) [Yearbook photo 2](http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?image=yearbook21st.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Heart\_On\_My\_Sleeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/77aa72/32.png) [@Heart\_On\_My\_Sleeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heart_On_My_Sleeve)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/2 "2005-12-11T01:17:40Z")
Well, the first one looks like the early 80’s to me. Like maybe '82 or '83. I’m having a harder time with the second one. The girls at my school had big hair up until I graduated (small town), but when I went to Austin in 1986 it seemed like the young girls wore their hair longer and straighter. I guess I’ll say pic #2 is mid- to late-80s. Maybe a trick question and they’re both from the same time period? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/3 "2005-12-11T01:25:39Z")
The first one looks like the 80s. I’d say probably around 1983 to 1985. The second photo really has no clear frontal shot of someone’s outfit, so it’s impossible to say. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/4 "2005-12-11T01:38:10Z")
#1 looks like the late 70’s/early 80’s. #2 looks like maybe the mid 80’s. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/5 "2005-12-11T02:11:00Z")
The first: 1977 The second: 1987 In the first photo, I noticed the Farrah Fawcett hairstyles right off the bat. Were they living in the past? ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/6 "2005-12-11T02:14:29Z")
The Farah Fawcett flips in pic 1 say 1976 to me. As far as I know that aspect of the 70s never made it back 🙂 In pic 2 I can see some white keds which to my recollection came back in after _Dirty Dancing_, that plus the tapered-leg jeans on the girls lead me to say 1986. ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/7 "2005-12-11T02:40:45Z")
I’d guess 1984 and 1990ish respectively. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/8 "2005-12-11T02:45:17Z")
I can’t say for sure about the first, but the second has to be late seventies, early eighties, if only because of the hair. ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/9 "2005-12-11T02:53:26Z")
The jeans on the girl to the left on the second photo are 90s jeans, (as is the way she’s wearing her shirt) and straight hair came back into style in the 90s, even though my hometown still was doing the big hairstyles. ---
**Author:** ![PapSett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecc23a/32.png) [@PapSett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PapSett)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/10 "2005-12-11T03:04:21Z")
That first set of pictures is definitely late 70’s style, '76 - '77 - '78 , there abouts. Looks like some of the people I went to high school with :D. The second is harder. I’ll wager a guess early 90’s? ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/11 "2005-12-11T03:33:54Z")
Maybe I live in a time warp, too. I’d say the first picture is 84-5, the second is 89-90. ---
**Author:** ![Lsura](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/12 "2005-12-11T03:39:51Z")
Based on a couple of things (mostly clothing related), I’d say late 70’s for the first one - probably '78 or '79. The second one, I’d go for around 1988, based mostly on the girls’ hairstyles - I remember hairstyles like that around my first couple of years in HS. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/13 "2005-12-11T06:06:45Z")
Yearbook photo 1: Buffalo, New York 1984 Yearbook photo 2: suburban Los Angeles, California 1984 So, if Buffalo is buffalo is behind the times, as the responses seem to indicate, the question qould be why? Why are some places in the country in a time warp, when they share the same media and retail outlets? Why would high school girls in Buffalo – and I assume in some other aprts of the country as well – still have Farrah hair in the 1980s? ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/14 "2005-12-11T06:09:45Z")
Typo: “So, if Buffalo is buffalo …” should just be “So, if Buffalo …”. ---
**Author:** ![Cerri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3bc359/32.png) [@Cerri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerri)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/15 "2005-12-11T08:41:09Z")
Back where I lived in small-town NW Indiana, a good many of them _still_ look like that, if you’re _really_ looking for a fashion time warp. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/16 "2005-12-11T11:24:32Z")
Williamsburg, Virginia. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/17 "2005-12-11T11:45:01Z")
In 1999 I took a cross-country trip, going from Seattle to San Francisco to Nashville. From SF to Nashville we drove practically due east on I-40. During our frequent stops to refill the gas tank\* I happened into a store near Og’s Butt\*\*, Oklahoma, where they were still selling pee-chees with Ric Ocasek and The Cars on the cover. \*The van we were driving belonged to a guy from British Columbia and was therefore in metric. By the time we became acceptably good at converting from kph to mph in our heads, the gas gauge needle stopped working. This meant that we really had no idea how far we could drive before filling the tank without first calculating the distance on the map since our last refill, converting it to kilometers, and comparing it to the odometer, then remembering the two or three times we filled the tank previously while the gas gauge was actually operational. Then the speedometer broke too. \*\*Not the town’s real name. ---
**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/18 "2005-12-11T14:01:59Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > Yearbook photo 1: Buffalo, New York 1984 > Yearbook photo 2: suburban Los Angeles, California 1984 > > So, if Buffalo is buffalo is behind the times, as the responses seem to indicate, the question qould be why? Why are some places in the country in a time warp, when they share the same media and retail outlets? Why would high school girls in Buffalo – and I assume in some other aprts of the country as well – still have Farrah hair in the 1980s? Good question. My guess would be that trends start on one coast and filter eastward/westward. People may be more strongly influenced by the fashions of people they _know_ than they are by the fashions of people they merely _see_. Teens, self-conscious as they are, may be even less likely to adopt a “look” if they haven’t seen it on someone they know. Kids in Buffalo had surely seen Farrah-style hair in magazines and on TV before 1984, but girls in Buffalo were unlikely to adopt the style until it showed up on friends and neighbors in the next community over. A teenage girl may dream of looking like (insert pop culture icon name here), but she generally wants even more to look like (insert popular girl in school) and _not_ stand out. FWIW, I also pegged the first photo at early-to-mid 80’s. I couldn’t place the second photo at all. A friend of mine who was living on the west coast from the early 70’s to the mid-80’s pegged the first photo at mid-70’s. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/19 "2005-12-11T14:13:07Z")
Wow. I can’t believe that’s 1984 in the first shot. The black folks in particular look like mid '70s to me. ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2005, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083/20 "2005-12-11T14:33:16Z")
Wow. That is pretty cool. I always knew the town I grew up in was pretty behind the times - and the second photo looks like the style and dress of my graduating class: 1996. :eek: [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-really-places-stuck-in-a-fashion-time-warp-and-an-experiment/335083.md?page=2)