I was looking up some shoes on Zappos today and came across Wallabees–which reminded me that those were a major fad at my grade school in the '70s. Everybody, both boys and girls, wanted them. I had a pair and I loved them! Now they seem more like old-guy shoes, but back then they were the thing for the well dressed kid.
So I’m curious:
What were the fads in your school when you were growing up? Grade school, middle school/jr. high/high school, all are fine. Particularly interested in more regional-type fads as opposed to the “well known” ones like Pet Rocks, mood rings, and designer jeans.
What part of the country/world did you grow up in?
What was the era?
Just want to see whether fads were different in different geographical areas, especially in the pre-Internet days.
I’ll start, and I went to school in southern California, in a small town near Santa Barbara/Ventura:
As I mentioned, Wallabees shoes. This would have been the early 70s.
Zotz candy - these came in long strips, and were hard candy with a kind of fizzy stuff in the middle. You can still buy them today. Early to mid '70s.
Dittos pants for girls - these were fairly snug fitting and had kind of a U-shaped “saddle stitching” design on the butt. Mid to late '70s.
Op Sportswear. Everybody, girls and boys, had either the pants or the shorts with the cargo pockets and the little “Op” logo on the pocket.
Birkenstocks - mid 70s. I wanted these so much! My mom finally got me a pair and I hated them. Thought they looked cool but they hurt my feet a lot. The popular ones were either the two-strap design or the one that had a single wide strap that went over the top of your foot with the toes bare. They had to be suede, not smooth leather. The clog type were uncool.
Members Only jacket - another thing that’s old-guy wear now but cool as hell for kids when I was in junior high (mid to late 70s). Girls and boys wore them. I remember being so happy when my parents gave me a dark blue one with purple overtones. I still have it hanging in the back of my closet for some reason.
Satin baseball jackets - Mid to late 70s. Mine was dark blue with a red, white and blue striped collar and cuffs. This fad didn’t last long IIRC.
Funny, but I don’t remember many of the fads from high school. I think by that point aside from having a couple of pairs of designer jeans, I pretty much stopped paying attention to them.
I was born in 1978 and grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs. I remember in elementary school:
*jelly shoes (rubbery transparent plastic shoes which…gallingly…have made a recent comeback in the adult market, WTF)
*jelly bracelets (rubbery plastic bracelets that came in all colors, and you’d wear a ton on one wrist)
*Reebok sneakers
*Garbage Pail Kids collectable cards
*Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, which the Garbage Pail Kids cards parodied
*Collecting stickers in a sticker book (all my girl friends had them)
Penny loafers, pea coats, these skirts that had slits on the side and shorts underneath (hard to explain), tennis sweaters, and ironing hair with a clothes iron.
I think we’re going to need some sort of references here… I’m 32.
When I was in grade school, I remember snap bracelets. Those one’s you hit on your wrist and they wrapped around. From time to time they seem to pop back up.
Trapper Keepers
Pogs
I don’t know if kids still collect baseball cards, but everyone had them back then.
Girls tying up the corner of their shirts.
Hypercolor shirts.
ETA I had snap/slap bracelets typed before I saw the other ones, but I had to keep running back and forth to do other stuff. Drat.
In 1990-1991, the fads were Hypercolor tshirts, mini Koosh balls, and slap bracelets. The school prohibited the slap bracelets after one kid three states over supposedly got lockjaw from one of them.
In junior high, 1991-1994, everyone wore Sperry topsiders, acid-washed jeans, and pastel oxford cloth shirts. Toward the end stonewashed silk shirts became a thing, too.
In high school, 1994-1998, grunge took over. In my junior and senior years my uniform was a Beatles tshirt, a flannel shirt, wide-leg jeans, patent leather combat boots, and a wallet chain.
When I was in the 8th grade in 1967, lemon yellow A1 Pegger slacks were a must have. I never got any, because I thought they looked stupid, especially after teenage boys wore them for a few days and pale yellow pants turned a grubby tan around the cuffs and pockets.
Grade school: hula hoops, Davy Crockett hats, pogo sticks
Jr High: Purcell and Converse low top sneaks, trench coats for a mercifully brief period, white levis
High school: black levis
Friendship pins, which were safety pins with beads on them. The girls made them and gave them to their female friends, who displayed them on their shoes.
Friendship bracelets, which were made and worn by both sexes.
A few more… Docksiders. I can’t find the one’s we wore. But they had 3 or 4 eyelets on each side, we laced them straight across and then tied off the laces in a very specific way. Kinda like this but pulled tight against the shoe so they stuck out. The people who wore these shoes in grade school wore Khakis and listened to Dave Matthews in high school.
In high school:
Chokers on girls Leather chokers in guys.
Pretty sure My So Called Life had something to do with that.
