Melissa McCarthy's Bootleg Harem Pants

Dungarees worn the Cool Way (ie. with one strap undone).

Jane, the video didn't embed correctly!

I never set any trends, but I was a fervent follower of the Baggy T-shirt Tucked Into Pants And Then Heavily Bloused movement.

I was your standard, boring Jeans And Tee Girl, but I'm pretty sure my sister singlehandedly invented Boho style about 15 years ago.

I stole a bunch of neckties from my grandfather's closet and used them as belts in middle school, until I got enough teasing/well-meaning "um did you know that's a tie and not a belt?" Cut to five years later and it's all the rage according to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. My tragic flaw was being ahead of my time/not a gay man or straight man looking to dress according to gay man rules.

I used to cover the pockets of my (black; parachute) pants with duct tape. Putting duct tape through the wash is an experience I suggest everyone have at least once in their life.

Also, Melissa McCarthy!!

Oh my god, I am remembering an entire year of high school during which I wore an old red snow hat with a pair of safety goggles perched on top.

I just want to apologize to my dad for systematically stealing all of his plaid/flannel shirts in middle school and wearing them to school. Sorry, dad.

I would also like to apologize to society and myself for wearing said shirts with a turtleneck underneath. :[

Yesterday I saw a vintage leather Chanel MINI BACKPACK for sale and I was so, so tempted to relive my middle school glory days.

By high school, I had graduated to gigantic JNCO jeans paired with teeny belly shirts from the kid section. Ah, the nineties.

Cutting my boob-length hair into a pixie cut in the ninth grade. My best friend walked right by me, not recognizing me at all. I was also asked if I had "lost a bet." In any case, precocious hair-cutting means that now, I feel totally justified in growing my hair to sister wifely lengths because I can just sniff, "oh, pixie cuts? I did that when I was 13."

I remember, at age 9, desperately begging my mother to purchase me a gold velvet christmas tree skirt with silver stitching… so that I could wear it as a cape. She declined, but once she made the mistake of buying me a 10-pack of claw clips in assorted colors. I wore them all in my hair. Simultaneously. Every day for a month.

I wore a pink unitard to school once. I don't even know how I got that unitard.

I, a 'husky' boy w/ a german/irish potato-skull, decided at one point it would be a good idea to:

(A).Get a perm. w/ The tightest curlers possible. Giving me a "fro".
(B).Start wearing a suit on the regular. But not just a regular suit.
(B).(1).A cream colored three piece suit
(B).(2).With no lapel at all on the jacket
(B).(3).And giant faux-satin lapels on the vest, with the edge of the jacket tucked between vest lapels and vest itself.
(B).(4).With a purple shirt and paisley tie.

I, unfortunately, have been unable to find any pictures of this look other than the perm. Maybe fortunately. I should also mention I went to High School in the late 90s, note the Early 70s, and in Northern NJ, not Paisley Park.

Bodysuits (ugh, crotch suffocation alert) with baggy jeans (the more risque girls wore their jeans low enough to show part of the bodysuit leg holes), Doc Martens, and a flannel over the top. Or in lieu of the baggy jeans, farmer overalls with one strap hanging down. In lieu of the flannel, a baseball jersey. In lieu of Doc Martens, Converse all-stars with the name of your crush written on the toe.

And then Clueless came out and you had to reevaluate your self-expression, because all of the stuff described above made you look like Tai pre-makeover.

Wait, what do you mean this was pre-goth? She was born in 1970, no?

Thanks to the Wiesbaden Air Base BX being the major source of our clothes in middle school, we all tended to wear trends in clear "purchased at the Base Exchange" waves.

But wearing said trendy clothes on a school trip to the USSR meant my BFF and I were very novel to the Russian ladies we met in various places. Because we were wearing sweatshirts with fuzzy teddy bears on them. Oh yes.

Also, Coca Cola rugby shirts. And two pairs of socks in different colors, stacked up on leggings.

Ahhhhhhh, the 80's in Europe.

I would fashion mini-skirts out of random bits of fabric and safety pins. I swear, those "skirts" were held together with wishful thinking. I also had a brief phrase of creating skirts out of flannel shirts. I would button them up part way, slip it around my waist and then use the sleeves to wrap around my waist to hold everything in place. Match that with an overly tight shrunken sweater, purple lipstick and overly-plucked brows and you have my fashion experience in the mid-ninteies in a nut-shell. What a time. Oh… and hair mascara. (blue and gold were my favs)
Still, there is one outfit I truly loved. Hot pink sparkly tights w/torn fishnets over those. A mini-skirt with shorts underneath (because my Mother would not let me leave the house otherwise) and another one of those dreaded tiny sweaters. And plat-forms.

When I was in 5th grade, lime green was all the rage. I guess I figured that color was my ticket to coolness, b/c I became fixated on it. EVERYTHING lime green. Except one important accessory, to add some contrast. I had lime green overalls that I wore w/ a lime green striped shirt…but probably BEST lime green outfit was: Lime green snowflake print leggings, worn with a lime green sweatshirt and matching lime green scrunchy…and hot pink glitter-covered boots.

I'm not gonna lie. I would totally wear almost every awful thing described on this thread. And not ironically, either.

Is this how I know that I'm old?

The funnest thing I used to do was steal my dad's overcoats and belt them. I had this one look just for church: black overcoat with lapels turned up to form a notch at the throat, over a white turtleneck. Looked just like a preacher. That one drove my mom nuts.

Then in college, I went through what a black guy on the street once described as "punk rock sweetness," but which was actually a Comme des Garçons obsession (spent all my dough at Charivari sales), which I accessorized with bakelite handbags, white cotton gloves (just like Mickey Mouse), big black satin bows on my Doc Martens, pale face powder, red lipstick, with my hair in a bun with a spit curl at my forehead. Passengers used to burst out laughing on the LIRR when I boarded. Those Great Neck snots!

I also made myself a faux fur skirt with an exposed 2-inch wide black elastic waistband, which, I notice, is being done now, ho ho ho.

In HS, I thought I was way cool buying all the same high school stuff (like logo jackets and baseball jerseys), but with no logo. It was suposed to say: "Who am I with? No one. I walk alone." Then, of course, I totally caved for a year before the Comme des Garçons fling.

The only time I wore the shorts-over-tights look, it was middle school, and I was inspired by a Depeche Mode documentary: black and white horizontal striped tights, very short jean shorts I'd accidentally bleached too much until they were almost white, with a tucked-in and "bloused" black and white gingham (!) long-sleeved shirt I'd randomly embroidered with multicolored zigzags, and black canvas lug sole shoes with a reinforced toe –these have a name but I can't remember it now. At the time they seemed European.

A few years later my influences had diversified somewhat. The summer I was 16 I got a bunch of vintage athletic t-shirts (with contrasting stripes on the shoulders and around neck/armholes) at the thrift store and wore these with baggy engineer-striped Dickies jeans and combat boots.

I wore multiple Swatches on one arm. Like a boss.

Hits from my middle-early high school fashion career: Furry pink mini-skirt, furry leopard mini (whatever, that shit was FLY and I would totally still wear it if I had it/it fit), disgusting polyester baggy old man pants that I stepped on the backs of and they were all tattered and gross that my mom used to secretly try to throw away, a MILLION little kids ironic tees from the flea market (Power Rangers, karate tournament, etc), black and white checkered thrift store pants paired with a shrunken black/white/gray striped short sleeved mock turtleneck (ew barf), knee high striped athletic socks, SILVER COMBAT BOOTS!!!!!!!!!! (yes a Dee-lite video was playing in the store when I bought them), green plastic strappy sandals, chunky black Mary Janes, high heeled pink patent Mary Janes.

Honestly, the one thing I miss about those fashion days was the SHEER AUDACITY I had leaving the house in that garbage. Wish I still had that don't-give-a-fuck attitude.

AND, I'm wearing daytime red lipstick with my brown henley to feel glam today. FINALS!

I used to wear a meat locker trench coat. I 'stole' it from my stepfather. It was covered in animal bloodstains. I was never bullied in High School.

Also, we would take two pieces of scotch tape and put it on our cheeks and apply heavy blush in the blank space. When done, we'd remove the tape and think we looked all punk.

I miss the 80s.

I wore a lot of very large scarves pinned at the waist as mini skirts, sometimes over shorts, always with tights.

And, BEST EVER:

Black velvet jacket with gold embroidery
Cream high collared silky shirt
Gold and black brocade tights
Black knee length shorts, made from a pair of dress trousers
Ankle boots, in black patent leather
Hair in pony tail with Big Poofy Black Bow

Blackadder, baby. Oh yes.

Things I wore that were misfortunate at the time but later had a moment of high fashion (all of these occurred circa 4th-5th grade in the late 90s, beginning of 2000):

-An embroidered black poncho which I wore instead of a coat. In Minnesota.

-Brightly colored moccasins with some kind of twine sole. I owned them in 3 different colors.

-Black leggings as pants (with my parents oversized t-shirts).

I kind of wish I could find that poncho? It had neon floral embroidery around the edge and was very luxe and I would probably wear it now!

In high school, I loved pairing a beat-up, secondhand biker jacket with girly-girl flowery dresses — I think it was another thing I picked up from Sassy magazine. My matchy-matchy mom hated this look and would try to explain to me how inappropriately disparate these garments were, as if I weren't doing it on purpose and that office-job moms and 15-year-olds should dress the same way. I still like that look… and now I wish I still had that jacket.