I was just curious as to what people consider to be the hugest fashion disaster of all time. I was thinking somewhre along the lines of Orange Polyester bell bottoms, but I would like the hear the opinions of you all.
I’d go with leg warmers. I saw someone wearing them a few days ago and my eyeballs melted and dripped down my face.
Don’t pick on bell bottoms, man. Sure, they look stupid now, even on gorgeous young teeny-boppers, but back in the seventies if you wore straight-legged jeans you may just as well have rolled your Marlboros in the sleeve of your plain white tee shirt. Strictly a Square from Delaware.
A young woman got on the subway this morning as the train was passing West 4th Street (that’s the Village, to the NYC-impaired). She was quite pretty, but she was wearing WIDELY flared polyester pants, a fringed black leather jacket, a wide leather belt with embossing and silver hearts on it, a long, LONG scarf, wire-rimmed shades, and a floppy leather cap.
I wasn’t sure if she was stylish, or was on her way to a 1970s masquerade party.
To answer your question…the maxiskirt. Introduced around 1970-71, it sent women into jeans, trousers, and pantsuits in droves.
I think the baggy ass pants looked and continue to look ridiculous. Add a baseball cap worn sideways or backward and the person has the complete ugly outfit.
Hiphuggers
Hiphuggers.
Hiphuggers.
And if you didn’t hear me the first time,
Hiphuggers.
Really horrible for those of us who had a lot of hip to hug. And even on the svelte, they looked like you didn’t pull the pants up all the way.
A couple of years ago all the boys in my neighborhood were wearing their pants down around their hips, usually with boxers remaining at the normal waistline. It got silly enough that a local 80’s music radio station had a tagline <something like> “Music for those of us with our pants firmly around our waists”. My flatmate’s boyfriend told me (last week) the local boys did that because your belt gets taken away when you go to prison. He thought that all these kids were showing solidarity for their imprisoned family members. Augh! She’s dating a republican! All this time I thought they were trying to show off their flat tummies.
Knickers.
Mini-skirts.
2 inch soles on sneakers (WTF?)
Exaggerated bustles. Nobody should have to turn sideways to get through a door.
Empire line dresses (who looks good in those things?).
Headbands/bows worn on the top of the head.
Corsets worn on the outside, not even if you are a goth.
The flat-as-a-boy flapper look popularized in the 1920s by that Nazi whore, Coco Chanel. Before that, women LOOKED like women, curves and all. Chanel started the craze—which still holds sway over us—that grown-up women have to look like undernourished 12-year-old boys.
They should’ve hanged that bitch after the War.
A-fucking-men, Eve. I mean, it’s easy to fake curves.
BTW, Chanel dated a Romanov-Grand Duke Dmitri, the one who was in on the plot to kill Rasputin. (Gosh, MY one trick Pony Trick-the Romanovs!)
But, I LIKE bell bottoms, or flares. They look good on me. And so do empire waist dresses.
How about the dark lipliner over pale lipstick? THAT looks really gross!
I’m wearing flares right now, thanks very much. 
I’d have to say my biggest pet peeve faux pas is old men, in shorts, w/ dress socks and wingtips.
–tygre
The thong bathing suit for men.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t require that all men look like they’ve just stepped out of the Bow-Flex commercial. But this garment of clothing is laughably bad even on men with fabulously perfect bodies. It automaticaly transforms a man with a nice-but-not-fabulously-perfect body into an embarrasing eyesore. And any man carrying more than 5% body fat becomes a truly horrific source of visual pollution.
Can you say “leisure suit?”
Lipliner with no lipstick. I always want to shove a mirror in front of these chicks’ faces and tell them to finish putting their makeup on.
Stirrup pants. Ugh.
Most women’s fashion in general. I just can’t fathom wearing clothes that you couldn’t hop a fence in. In particular I can’t stand:
Platform sandals or sneaker- They look so ridiculous! Here you see a nice normal woman, and you look down to see that a good three inches of her is actually icky black foam. How the heck can you walk in them? I can hardly handle walking in heels, and those don’t usually rise into the stratosphere. And who came up with the idea for platform sneakers? They look like moon shoes. Only really expensive, really ugly moonshoes.
The popular skirt length right now- you know, the just below the knees with a little floaty hemline. For some reason it make women look like white trash house wives to me. I guess it is better than skimpy skimpy skirts, but they just seem to yell “abuse and oppress me!”
People that go out at night dressed in little black clothes with no jacket (because that would destroy the look or actually be comfortable or something) and then bitch all night about how cold they are. For St. Joseph in a hot tub’s sake, it’s December, it’s cold, listen to your mother on they way out and put on a jacket!
Ack! I am sure I could think of more, but these are just what came to me…If you are a big fan of these fashions, please remember that I don’t really like much of anything, so you shouldn’t feel like your alone.
That explains the popularity of Mamie Van Doren, Marylin Monroe, and Elizabeth Taylor. None of whom looked like waifs.
Marc
i do like platforms, too bad i have such a hard time walking in them.
i like the tank tops with the spaghetti straps.
i look good in empire waists, but do not wear dresses often.
i do not wear hiphuggers, or bell bottoms, EVER.
i do not understand, why, when one’s bra size is larger than 38, that it is so incredibly difficult to find pretty bras in COLORS or demi cups. And it would surely be nice to find a strapless bra that does not cut off my circulation. i believe that i may have found one, but i have to see if it will be in my size.
Blue eyeshadow.
It wasn’t a good idea the first time around, and I don’t know why it’s made a comeback.
Jellies–little plastic sandles that made waffle marks in your feet
Day Glo anything–Day Glo colors are meant strictly for neon signs and safety stripes
The asymetrical look–you know, those dresses or shirts that had one sleeve and then sort of a diagnoal neck line and no sleeve on the other side. I don’t think this caught on, thank god. It just always looked wrong.
I’ve got to just keep my mouth shut. I used to have this big list of stuff I said I’d never wear–stuff that was too ugly, dumpy, disgusting, unfashionable etc. The older I get, the more I find myself actually WEARING it.
I actually bought some elastic-waist, no-pocket, old-lady jeans when I was recovering after my c-section. 12 months later, I was still (weakly) justifying wearing them.
I even found myself wearing my birkenstocks with black socks this summer.
High heels or platforms because they are physically dangerous.
Corsets because they interfered with breathing. In the 1900’s house, the wife got extremely short winded because
of the pressure of her corset.
Wearing any underwear outside just looks incredibly stupid.