Fashion Backwards

My sister was a fashion model for most of her adult life.  She was discovered by a scout at the ripe old age of 17 and was whisked away to New York to begin her career.  She is very fashionable and hip and still to this day wears all the latest fashions.

Unfortunately for me, I didn’t inherit her eye for fashion or magazine cover good looks, for that matter. High fashion for me is the mens section of Target and an occasional stop at Old Navy.

But a few weeks ago I went outside of my comfort zone and visited a fancier clothing store.

As I lurked around said clothing store feeling uncomfortable and holding a pair of jeans, one of the sales girls came up to me and told me that my choice of jeans was very “fashion forward”.  Huh?

Her comment made me think of the silly fashionable things that I partook of when I was younger. Those decisions that you look back on and cringe.  You ask yourself “Why did I do that?” and hope to heaven that there aren’t any pictures.

Here are my top five fashion regrets.  Maybe you made some of the same decisions:

Parachute pants  -  But they weren’t really parachute pants.  Not the kind that you would see in music videos.  They were made of some sort of synthetic material.  The kind of material that stuck to your skin on hot days and didn’t billow in the wind.  Not parachute like at all.  Apparently real parachute material was expensive and my parents couldn’t afford it.

The curly mullet  -  If you are unfamiliar with this style, let me paint you a mental picture.  The top part of your hair is normal but the very back, down by the neck, is unnaturally curly.  I immediately regretted this decision and asked my mom the next day if I could get it cut off.  She said I would have to live with it.  Tough love.

Pegged pants  -  This is when you wrap the cuffs of your jeans very tightly around your ankles.  It took a lot of skill and practice to keep them pegged.  I’m still not sure what the benefits were of pegging ones pants.  Perhaps it was for aerodynamic reasons.

The Michael Jackson jacket  -  What white suburban kid in the eighties did not want this jacket? Everybody had one.  It was red with black stripes and high shoulders.  Just like the one MJ wore in the thriller video.  Of course this look wasn’t complete without the single, sequined white glove.

The airbrushed T-Shirt  -  It used to be that you couldn’t leave a beach vacation without buying an air brushed T-shirt.  Most of them were adorned with bright neon colors and contained messages like, “Spring Break ’89″ or “Far-Out, Beach trip”.   And they always had pictures of dolphins and palm trees on them.  I think I still have a few tucked away in a drawer somewhere.

Those are my top five.  I’m sure there are many more.

To give you a sense of my fashion awareness, here is a picture of me as a young child.  I think it speaks for itself:

Question: What are some of your cringe worthy fashion moments?