Casualty of the '90s

I think every generation has a moment where they look back at how they dressed in their youth and they think to themselves, "Sweet Jesus, what were we thinking?" The '60s had their beehive hairdos, and poodle skirts, and pointy mountain-peak bra's; the '70s had the tight, white bell bottoms and platform shoes with the comb-over bowl cuts and horrid polyester shirts; the '80s had the big hair, and the ripped clothing, and the poufy-shouldered metallic prom dresses; and then there were the '90s...

We grew up in the '90s, my sister and I. We are '90s casualties.

I'm actually horrified at the clothing choices we made as children. And, I do actually mean choices. I got up in the morning, took a look in my closet, and purposefully selected pink neon spandex pants to wear with a no fear t-shirt. It was usually between that and pastel coloured sweat suits.

I mean I get that we worked with what was available at the time and all, but...I mean...just look at this:

Can we talk for five seconds about how my shorts look like they're being eaten by a magenta vagina monster? And a bucket hat? Are you fucking kidding me?! I'd also like to point out that my t-shirt is decorated with gold metallic paint. Yeah. Gold. Someone just kill me already.

I don't know what the hell fashion designers in the '90s were thinking, but I assume it had something to do with copious amounts of cocaine, and I will never forgive them for it. They are responsible for never-ending shame whenever I think about what I wore as a child, and the photographic evidence (a.k.a. every photo between the years of 1990 and 1997) is enough to make me want to bedazzle my eyelids shut.

The sad thing about the whole situation is I remember just loving some of this stuff, and I'm not talking about complacently enjoying my clothes. I mean throw-a-tantrum-if-I-don't-get-to-wear-my-sparkle-kitten-sweater excited.

Because, yeah...kitten sweaters. 

Kitten sweaters...and permed mullets.  

To be fair, the hairdresser really screwed me in this photo. She left the perming solution in too long and then thought 'I know, I'll just cut some of it off...INTO A MULLET!' I can't even.

And this isn't even my worst hair doo.

I can't really even blame the fashion creators of the '90s for this faux pas, this is all on me. I went from this adorable little thing, with the mum-cut bangs: 

To this:

I apparently didn't care for bangs much...so I cut them off.

Just. My. Bangs. And then mum had to try and salvage the rest. 

Such a train wreck.

But anyway, less of my hair travesties and more about the clothes.

I really feel that 90% of what we wore as children can be seen on the cast of Saved by the Bell. 

There's something about the colour palette of the clothing on the early seasons of this show that really brings me back to my youth. Pastels. I remember a lot of pastels. Or maybe I'm just thinking about how I used to sit glued to the television gazing adoringly at Zack Morris's pretty, pretty face, wearing my onesie, black, jersey-knit jumpsuit with rainbow buttons...    

We had pastels, and sparkles...but we also had neon. So much, mother-fucking neon.   

I'm fairly certain we had the pink version of the skirt seen above. That skirt with the built in shorts underneath. And the elasticized waist-band.

I know neon has made a fairly triumphant come back, thanks to American Apparel, and various other stores that I hate, but I feel like we'll look back at this resurgence in a few years and say the same thing about now, that we said about the '90s: what were we thinking?

Granted, we're not really rocking the same neon holocaust as seen above, but it's still pretty bad. I saw a belly shirt the other day. A highlighter yellow cut-off belly shirt. That will never be okay. NEVER.

There was this one sweat shirt that Niela and I used to fight over constantly when we were kids. It was white with pink, neon, tie dyed bits all over it. But the pink stuff was made from hyper colour, so when it heated up, it changed colour to green.

But it never really changed consistently over the whole sweatshirt, so you'd be left with booger-green armpits and a sort of pinky-green gradient around the neckline and the wrist cuffs.

If you were really hot, sometimes just a racing stripe down the middle of your back. Pair this with a newly shorn mushroom cut (possibly with a rat tail) and this basically paints a picture of the 4th grade.

Okay, maybe this was me in the 4th grade. Whatever. I'm cool with my sparkle shirt. And my mushroom cut. And my boy-face.

Thank God that about half-way through the decade neon became terribly un-cool. I'd like to thank the grunge movement for this: thanks grunge, even if you are the epitome of dirty 'who-gives-a-fuck' attitude, you really helped us out of the trenches on this one. Keep on rockin -- Justine.

The downside of this reversion to natural colours and clothing textiles is that instead of leaning towards day-glo poly blends...I discovered overalls. I wore overalls for two years straight.

I think I only had the one pair too...and considering I wore them every single day, and didn't do much laundry...I'm thinking this was a dark time for me. They were fairly utilitarian, and they definitely didn't hinder my tetherball serve by any means, but I just can't for the life of me figure out why I lost my shit over these stupid buckled bib-pants. I mean, they had that pointless hammer loop for Christ's sake! At what point did I ever even attempt to wield a hammer? And at what point did my excessive hammer usage necessitate the addition of a hammer loop to my pants?

Never. That's when.   

Anyway, I'll cease my tirade on my poor childhood choices and just revel in the knowledge that this time is over. I can wear real clothes now. Clothes that match my skin tone, and never go out of style, and express my personality, and don't have sparkly kittens, or plastic jewels permanently punched through them, or neon skirts fastened around them or anything. 

Maybe what I hate more than the general awfulness of '90s clothing is the plethora of fads that decade subscribed to. It seemed like everything was a trend, from the clothes, to the music. One hit wonders, and metallic parachute pants; only acceptable for two months out of the year and then never to be heard of again.

But the important thing...is that we survived it all. We lived to tell others of our woes, and maybe...just maybe...we can save the world from another neon-o-caplyse.