High School Fashion

My mom was upset yesterday because my baby brother went to Starbucks in his Renaissance costume. Okay, weird, but he has friends who like to dress like that, so he wasn't the only one. Plus, all year long he has to wear a school uniform, so this is his individuality coming out.

When I was in school, it was New Wave.

When I was in high school (the 80s) one of the girls’ high schools would have dances every month. A group of us from the public high school would go because, well, we loved music and we loved dancing and my ex-boyfriend was DJ.
We’d get out of the car and people would know where we were from by the way we were dressed.
We were cool. Cora was tall and thin – 5 foot 10, and a size 5, at the most. She favored skinny jeans and ripped t-shirts, Dead Kennedys, Clash, PiL. I remember her spray-painting an anarchy t-shirt.
Kirsten was Belinda Carlisle-esque, and she favored short skirts, tights and v-necked shirts.
We all had those little suede elf boots – remember those? We all wore the same size, so each of us bought a different color and we swapped.
I sewed, and worked at a fabric store, so I had the biggest wardrobe. I would be inspired by videos, and when I’d see fabric, I’d buy it. I had a pink checkered mini, a -black plastic is the only way to describe it- mini, a yellow and black chckered shirt, one of those WHAM shirts in orange dayglo, a t-shirt dress that was yellow but I dyed hot pink, and a cotton trench coat to match, leopard print skirt and blouse, a couple of those knit Belinda Carlisle skirts. I had two polka dot dresses, paisley jeans and Guess jeans (which I used my very first income tax check to pay for - $60 even then!) I didn’t wear jeans much.
We had tights in every color, including yellow and olive drab. I loved my fishnet stockings.
But the most important to me was having sparklies. We would haunt the flea markets for antique rhinestone jewelry, and sometimes settle for imports.
I remember once I had this antique crystal necklace on, but no earrings to wear with it. My stepfather’s mother took two crystals off her chandelier and we fashioned earrings out of them. They were really heavy.
So were you a clotheshorse back in the day? What’s the most ridiculous thing you ever wore?
Yes, I really wish I had a scanner. I was THIN in those days!

I got shoes last night. My friend Denise had given me $20 to Foley’s, and since we were out exchanging some of Fred’s shirts, I decided to go look at the shoes. My MIL found them on the clearance rack for $19, so I paid 51 cents. Price was right. And I would probably be really happy with them if I hadn’t found some SHOES. Oh, they were gorgeous, and on sale for $80 (I am WAY too frugal for that, and my MIL would have had a heart attack on the spot) but my lovely husband offered to buy them for me. I turned him down, but they were GORGEOUS!

These are NOT my shoes.

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Neither are these (though the ones I saw were silver and not Jimmy Choos.

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So, yeah, I settled, but I'm okay with that.

Guess what I'm working on....again? But I think this could be it, and it's already so much better.

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10 comments:

Jill Monroe said...

I want to see the pictures from High School!

Kelly Boyce said...

Ah yes...the 80s...my time as well. Fond memories of new wave, neon and shoes with no socks. None of which I wore. That was my best friend's wardrobe. I was the rock n roll chick. Blue jeans, white shirt, sneakers. A female version of Bruce Springsteen. Although, I did own a fingerless leather glove and a white jacket like the ones the guys in Duran Duran wore...

Anonymous said...

LOL on the clothes! I wanted to wear ripped jeans and so I worked a nice hole into the knee. Imagine my horror when my mother created a seam and sewed them back up! Oh, the fashion nightmare...

Anonymous said...

Memories. :-)
The 80s are back bigtime in the halls of my school. One of my students begged me to take her back to the mall when were at a conference in Feb. She needed to get skinny jeans. :-)

Trish Milburn said...

I had the ripped jeans, black concert T-shirts, giant hairsprayed hair. Also did the mini skirt thing, though you couldn't imagine that now.

Anonymous said...

Strangely enough, I don't find it weird to wear Renaissance clothes out in public. *g*

Elisabeth Naughton said...

Okay, so I read the blog (love the shoes by the way. What were you thinking turning DH down?!), but I was distracted by the picture at the bottom.

*droool*

Whatever else I was going to comment on went right out the window.

April said...

The 80's... Oh the memories. I'm so bad, a few years ago we went to a halloween party where the theme was the 80's and I had enough of my clothes from then to outfit most of my friends!

It proved to me that I needed to clean stuff out. Which I did shortly thereafter.

And I agree with Jill, I want to see pics!!

Toni Anderson said...

I was a total fashion disaster in the 80's and looking down at my Esprit combat pants combined with a brown 'I'll be nicer if you feed me chocolate' T-shirt, I'm not sure I have improved much!!

Good look with this version Mary!!!

MJFredrick said...

You know, dang it, I just had that album out not too long ago - it was a little album, and it had me and my friends posing....I cannot find it anywhere!

I had fingerless gloves! Lace ones like Madonna. I also had long satin ones - okay, those I still have. I got them at Judy's, which was the BEST STORE EVER. And there was a vintage shop Stacy B and I were reminscing over at lunch - String of Pearls on Main St.

Michelle! Your mom sewed them back up!!!!! The horror!

Mary Beth, my son listens to The Pretenders and The Clash. Used to be The Ramones. My dh still has his Ramones shirt here somewhere. He met them.

Tori, LOL on not thinking the Renaissance thing at Starbucks is weird.

Elisabeth, I had to - for one, my MIL would have died ON THE SPOT if I'd spent $80 on shoes - her electric bill is that! And plus, he's just a pretty generous guy anyway ;)

April, I can't believe you still had so many of your 80s clothes. I outgrew mine about 15 years ago!

Off to look for that album again.....

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I'm a mom, a wife, a teacher and a writer. I have five cats and a dog to keep me company. I love bookstores and libraries and Netflix - movies are my greatest weakness.
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