By the early 90’s parachute pants was completely out of style, and unfortunately replaced with pleated pants. Nothing spelled prep like wearing pleated pants, cuffed and rolled for a tight fit at the ankles. as if that wasn’t bad enough, for some reason you felt compelled to wear bright tops, or striped polo shirts. Your pants didn’t have to be pleated in order to roll them up, even your jeans fell victim to the cuffed ankle. For us ladies, we had a double advantage. If we didn’t feel like cuffing our pants, we could always toss on a pair of leggings. Of course, if you wore leggings you had to have an over sized sweatshirt on with it.
Brand names seem to come and go faster then you could wear them out. One month it was BK, the next L.A. Gear, and as soon as you bought those, Nike was all the rage. Keeping up with the times meant no stop shopping, or borrowing from friends. Tie dyed t-shirts, and peace symbols tried to make a come-back in the mid 90’s. Unfortunately, I fell for this one, and ended up looking like a hippie for a few months. Tie dye wasn’t my favorite look however, I did love the broomstick skirts. The girls all keep their hair the same throughout most of the 90’s. It was an easy look to achieve, all you had to do was pin the sides up, and tease your bangs to look like some wave.
My the mid 90’s, I had try many looks. However, as a teen this was a time to express yourself, just like the Madonna song. (I hated that song so bad, that it is forever burned in my mind) Concert shirts, was starting to become a trend, and I found myself right in the middle. Like many of the teens, we wore Converse high tops, and of course you had to take a Sharpie to them. The jeans became more relaxed fit, and it was great it they had a few holes in them. This meant buying a pair of jeans, taking a razor blade to them, and then washing them 10 times before wearing them. It really didn’t matter what rock band was displayed on your concert shirts, just as long as the shirts were black. If you wanted to look really cool, all you needed was a leather jacket. All your skirts had to be plaid, or solid black, and you never wore anything calf length. Above the knee was great, or dragging the floor, but not calf length.
By the late 90’s the “metal head” look was gone, even though a few of us hung on. Instead, girls started wearing bright tight little tops, and cut off jean shorts. I guess it is safe to say that the “cute look” was back, at least for the females. The guys started wearing their pants over sized. By over sized, I mean if you normally wore a 30 inch waist, you wore pants with a 36 inch waste. They would also wear their T-Shirts extra large. If you was one of the “in” crowd, you pushed one pant leg up to your knee. Gangs started becoming popular in Florida, and with that so, did looking like a gangster.
The end of the 90’s meant stability. It seemed like by this point so many fads, had come and went that people started giving up on being trendy. Relaxed jeans, and a solid shirt (that was florescent) made for everyday wear. Make-up started looking more natural, which meant no more pink mascara. You never rolled your pants tight around your ankles, and you wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a jean jacket. Overall the style became more relaxed, and that meant less time primping.
