Friday, October 03, 2008

Fashion Timeline


Being born in 1976, I was surrounded by un-natural fabrics and loud patterns but as time went by, I was lucky enough to dodge or embrace some fashion faux pas. Graduating high school in 1995 means that you don't have any embarrassing photos in the yearbook - no big hair, shoulder pads or weird denim washes. What's shameful about plaid flannel? I do admit, I have an ingrained love of patterns and avocado green appliances. Good times!

When I was in first grade, leotards and headbands were big and boy did I embrace the trend! By second grade, jelly bracelets and shoes had come into fashion. I had an armful of bracelets I arranged them in order of willingness to trade - lots of black toward my hand but my favorite sparkley/colorful ones were near the elbow. That was the year of the Cabbage Patch doll craze. My grandma got me an ugly one named Johanna Between second and fifth grade, I wasn't that fashionable. But by 5th grade, I had hit puberty and was the tallest kid in my grade ( 5'1"). So, I had stretched out of my chubbiness which opened up lots of fashion options. These were the banana clip years and weird shirt layering with one shoulder showing. I also crimped my hair a LOT.

Middle school started out strong fashion-wise but as everyone else hit puberty and I put on more weight, these were black hole years. I was still skinny in 6th grade and I had these awesome black jeans with ankle zippers that cost a lot of money. They were stolen from my gym locker. Middle school was also the time of hyper color shirts. Cool idea but they definitely looked lame. I was a fashion disaster in middle school. The only cool thing about me was my hair - I learned how to give myself a French braid in 8th grade and that got me my first appearance compliment ever in middle school. Ugh, I was the kid who didn't understand deodorant - I wore it but sometimes it didn't work or my wreak overpowered it. I was nicknamed Bacteria because of that. Whatever, I survived it and even now I have no clue how to tell people who have deodorant problems.

In high school fashion was heavily determined by what groups you hung out with. Since I was in the artsy fartsy group, I grew out my bangs, had looong hair and wore just as long skirts with leggings of course. Remember those nylon broomstick skirts that were recalled for being fire hazards? I had a closet full of them. I shopped at Urban Oufitters to supplement my tragically hip wardrobe. That is until grunge started which had me raiding my father and brothers closets for flannel which I paired with long skirts.

College was still a lot of flannel and overalls came into play. Sigh... I miss overalls but not the farmer look. I'm getting fashion nostalgic today because I realized my jeans were too long for flats when I got to work, so I pegged them.

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