Fads, Trends and In-things...

No one could ever accuse me of being a fashion-forward kinda girl. More like a fashion-backwards one... I always seemed to be just behind the wave, if not inundated by it. Recently I was shuffling through about a million old photos looking for something for one of my girls, permanent evidence of my lack of style if ever I saw it. I've certainly never had the right... umm... frame for fashionable dressing, and I'm never gonna change that now. But there is hope. Stacy and Clinton, where were you thirty years ago? No wait, make that forty!

It was about this time of year that I got my very first ever pair of bellbottoms. Were they white duck, or navy blue button-front? Were they tie-dyed and oh-so-cool? No. They were navy blue cotton with tiny flowers all over them. I picked 'em out myself at the dry goods store in Kindersley, spending my hard-earned babysitting money, and I was twelve. If I recall, it was the first time I'd ever shopped for clothing that didn't involve a catalogue of some sort. Which brings me to some of those really tragic choices. The very first outfit I bought with my own money was a slippery polyester three-piece disaster - a pink, long sleeved blouse, a pink "gingham" belted vest and matching skirt. I wore it for my Grade V school picture along with my granny glasses and ringlets. (Eeewww!) The photo was such a disaster that Mom agreed I could have retakes, and for those I wore a shades-of-red lightweight denim sleeveless top and shorts that my mom had made for me. Better!!

If that wasn't bad enough, when I went into Grade VI, I wanted to be "in style" so I parted my hair in the middle, grew out my bangs and fought daily to keep it straight. It came down to about the bottom of my chin, or maybe a little longer. I had a mostly-avocado-green psychedelic print dress with a white collar that I wore for photos that year. Did I mention that I'd broken my black plastic cats-eye glasses on the ski hill and they were held together on the left temple with white adhesive tape? When the photos came home that year my Nan was visiting us; she wanted to know why I was so upset by them so I showed her, looking for sympathy and a big hug. What I got instead was, "Well, it looks like you, dear". WAAAAAAAAAAHH! (No retakes that year... I missed them because I was sick.) I think there may still be one or two of them living in the basement at Mom and Dad's. Then there was the parish directory photo... OMG did I look awful. The centre part was gone, but the red cardigan I wore didn't do much to disguise the pudge, and the unfortunate "leather" choker I'd made for myself using an old crown-shaped button as a centrepiece made my neck look like a bulldog's. Sigh.

By Grade VII I really didn't want any more nasty class photos so I chose something very plain and boring. Or at least that's how I saw it. My hair was much longer by then and I let it curl like it wanted to; I just couldn't wear it loose all the time because it got in my way. So I tied the front part back and left the rest loose. It looked okay. My outfit was a red vest and pants over a turquoise turtleneck. I was a bit slimmer, having started to spend a lot of time in the pool and on the ski hill and my freckles had started to fade. Looking at it now, I think overall I looked pretty good! Serious, a little somber, but good. My confirmation photo is one I like a lot; I wore a navy blue dress with white sleeves and light panty hose. I looked like everybody else and that was a good thing.

My class photo from Grade VIII is a real horror show. By then I had started "filling out", which is just a really PC way of saying I started getting heavy. There I am, third from the left, next to Sue Ward, who is next to that evil little John T Cook. My hair is in a side ponytail with my bangs scraped off to the left and plastered to my forehead. I'm wearing a plum-coloured bonded knit sweater with a tiny geometric pattern knitted into it and a zippered neck, plus matching solid colour bonded knit plum coloured pants. The photo is black-and-white but in my head it's in living colour! Lynda Fox's expression says it all - That Jan REALLY needs a stylist!!

I don't recall a class photo from Grade IX; however that was the year I bought the oh-so-amazing white "leather" jacket that I used to clean with Fantastik. I wore my dad's shirts a lot then, trying to disguise my chest. That was the one time I was a little ahead of the parade - Madonna didn't start wearing torpedo bras for about ten years.

By Grade X I'd cut some layers into my hair, which made it extraordinarily unruly. The Ms. B. Smart English 102 class photo from that year is okay because I'm in the second row and only recogniseable because I know it's me, and I'm not the largest person in the room. Talk about big hair though, before it became fashionable in the 80's. My top was red knit with a red-and-white checked collar and cuffs, again only a vivid memory. That was the year of plaid baggies, platform shoes and contradictions. My dad took me shopping for my birthday and I, still clamouring to be a fashion icon, bought a pair of orange-and-brown-plaid-on-a-cream-background baggy pants and a matching orange shirt. (Have you ever seen me in orange? NO!! and you won't ever!!) It was a really attractive outfit, but not for me. As for contradictions, girls wore baby-doll tops over turtlenecks (I was lucky, I just appropriated my mom's maternity tops) or very fitted tops that emphasized the bustline, tied at the back. It was also the year of Beth Farrell's white halter top and cut-offs. (Cathy Pineau wore a white halter too but she didn't fill it out quite the same.)

In the summer of 1974, we moved to Duluth. I locked myself in the bathroom with a pair of scissors and cut off all my hair. I gave myself a very mod cut, actually rather like a bowl cut with heavy bangs curled under with a curling iron, and the sides also curled under in fat sausage curls. (I still have tiny scars over both cheekbones and above one eyebrow from that curling iron.) For Grade XI I looked... almost cute... in my light blue scoop-necked, puffed-sleeved sweater and octagonal granny glasses. I really just wanted to blend in.

The big fads in my senior year were plaid work shirts and "star" jeans that you could only get in Canada. Everybody who wanted to be "in", both guys and girls, went to Thunder Bay to shop for the heavy denim, snug-at-the-waist-and-hip but gargantuan-from-the-knee-down jeans with the embroidered stars on the back pockets made by GWG. ("Woohoo, over here! Canadian girl over here!") I had a navy blue plaid work shirt that I wore as a jacket, and my own pair of star jeans... I had arrived. I also got new glasses, huge aviator frames with Photogray lenses that seemed to ALWAYS be gray. My yearbook photo was taken only a few days after I'd gotten the new glasses and the optician offered to lend me a pair of frames without lenses so that there'd be no glare. I don't think I was squinting. I wore a pale blue blouse and a gray sweater. My hair had evolved again and now was blown back from my face on the sides, but still with the heavy bangs.

I'd like to say that when I left my teen years behind I left the fashion faux-pas there too, but alas. I did the big hair and bigger glasses, I did the shoulder pads, I did the humungous sweaters over stirrup pants... the mom jeans, cargo pants, tunics. But I've never worn my underwear as outerwear, nor even tried on "Hammer" pants, avoided slip dresses and skinny jeans, and I'll never go out in public in yoga wear, except to walk the dog. I'm never going to turn heads a la Carrie Underwood... or Bjork... and I'm okay with that. With suggestions from What NOT to Wear, I've begun to select clothing that flatter me, fit me and make me feel good... notwithstanding the Moosehead t-shirt and old jeans I'm wearing right now. Some days you've gotta go for comfort over style!