About 1961 or so, my brother was in HS, and I was two years behind. It was cool to get your jeans pegged. An alterationist would make the calves really tight. When I tried that, the tailor said she couldn’t make 'em smaller than the measurement around my ankle and heel; otherwise I couldn’t put them on. I had great big feet, so my pegged jeans weren’t very tight.
Madras plaid shirts were briefly hip, and mothers hated the color bleeding.
I started buying a big, slick, three-letter magazine that told gullible teenage boys (like me) what the next really cool thing would be. They said the next big thing would be Prison Shirts! I bought a grey work shirt, a stencil set, and some ball point paint. Monday morning, I showed up wearing AHS’s very first Prison Shirt. It said Indiana State Prison w/ a 5-digit number. I was stoked! Mr. Burroughs, my math teacher, was not so excited. He sent me to the Dean of Boys, who sent me home. “Didn’t it occur to you this would get you into trouble?” Well, no, it didn’t. :smack: The 3 letter magazine said it was unimaginably hip. Wrong.
Picture if you will, a long-haired, bespectacled goody-two shoes Bible-thumping straight-A student, dressed in a green-and-black oversized ‘‘thug’’-style plaid flannel shirt, silver cross ‘‘bling’’ necklace, hoop earrings, and a cowgirl hat. In Michigan.
Regrettably, you have just envisioned my eighth grade school photo.
slinks off into a corner
ETA: It just occurred to me this doesn’t actually mesh with any kind of identifiable fashion trend, except maybe the sort of preppy hip-hop thing I was trying to do. I guess I’m just a trendsetter. :rolleyes:
In the 5th grade (1987 or so) my prized possession was a denim jacket and pair of jeans that went together. They were both light blue acid washed. The denim had strategically placed rips, and…large Christmas-gift style bows made out of various colors of bandanas. I wore them with matching denim boots (thankfully unripped and unbandanaed). I thought I was the hottest thing on earth.
In early high school, I would never take off my leather bomber jacket.
Mork from Ork rainbow suspenders and a brown and white polyester disco shirt. Not, thankfully, at the same time. The only good thing about being a fat kid is that the trendy clothes weren’t usually made in my size so I stopped caring about clothes at a very early age.
Some of these were wide-spread trends; others probably were local trends, or just something wacky that I wore and nobody else did (or I wore them after they were no longer cool).
[ul]
[li]Rat-tail. When it got to about eight inches long, my dad cut it off as punishment for not doing my schoolwork, so for the next few years, I protested by getting my hair cut only once per year.[/li][li]Worn-out Levi’s patched with miscellaneous bits of fabric and contrasting thread. (It was a good use for favorite shirts that were too worn out to wear anymore.)[/li][li]Worn-out Levi’s in general. Whenever they’d get a new hole, I’d de-weave the area to make the hole rectangular, as an OCD thing.[/li][li]Tights under the worn-out Levi’s.[/li][li]Australian treated-canvas trench coat that smelled like an old tent.[/li][li]L.A. Gear shoes, with two different colors of wide laces.[/li][li]Wrestling shoes.[/li][li]Chuck Taylors covered in duct tape.[/li][li]Floppy old wool fedora.[/li][li]Timex digital watch with ironic Swatch-guard.[/li][/ul]
I’m actually living for this look to come back in. All it needs is the shoulder pads.
I am ticked that, once I finally became convinced that lower-rise jeans with flared legs were here to stay, I found a brand that fit and bought 5 different colors. Now, fashion seems to have realized that skinny jeans with a higher rise are more flattering on just about everyone, but my 5 pair of jeans will last me approximately forever.
Am I the first person to mention bicycle pants? Bonus for neon spandex.
Skinny leg jeans are flattering on about 0.1% of people. I will never buy a pair. I prefer boot cut, I’ll buy straight leg, but never ever skinny leg. I also hope that excessively tapered pleated-front jeans is a fashion that stays dead.
I had big hair for much of the second half of the 1980s. I mean big, poofy, hard-as-a-rock, Aqua-Net hair. My hair put hair bands to shame. Those guys in Poison would have been envious. I have a picture where my hair was twice the height of my face. Not a good look.
Zippered-leg jeans, so tight you had to lie down to zip them, check. With the bows, and the matching denim jacket, with the bows on the back? Had ‘em (Jordache, I seem to recall, but I’m not sure). Worn with red stiletto heels. I also had a zebra-striped spandex bodysuit, which is probably not a great look on anyone.
No, I wasn’t auditioning for a Whitesnake or Motley Crue video, but it must have looked as if I were.
Me too, and lots of other scary footwear: water buffalo sandals, ballet shoes, half black, half white go-go boots, knee high moccasin boots, Birkenstocks, Frye boots.
But really, nothing was stupider than bare feet. All the time. Everywhere.
