FIRST FASHION ENCOUNTERS
I didn’t know what “label ho” even meant until college.
Actually that’s a lie. I just lied. I mean, college was when I first fell in love with Michael Kors; but my mom has been into designer this and that ever since I was little. So I knew from early on that there was some kind of merit in distinguishing between a Coach handbag versus the other stuff that would “fall apart”. And when Perry Ellis or DKNY opened outlet stores at the local mall, I kept hearing her say, “You know this is a good designer. It just happens to be on sale,” every time I’d turn my nose up at something I didn’t like from the store. As if tweenie me really knew the difference.
No – none of that mattered to me yet. If I didn’t like the way the clothes looked or fit, some name on the tag wasn’t going to change my mind. Silly kid. Thinking back to my formative years, the first wave of wonder at wardrobe or fashion swept over me circa fifth or sixth grade when I saw Clueless for the first time, followed by a few equally stylish contemporary films; after that, it was all over for me.
DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR
I wanted to be the pretty protagonist I so admired in every feature film. I even befriended the new girl who looked lonely, insisting she “come hang with us” at the cheerleader/girl and boy jock table. It was a nice gesture and we became good friends, but… she ultimately just ended up being more popular than I was.
Once I realized that being the resident popular hot chick just wasn’t my niche – not with this hair and skin anyway – I’d at least settle for emulating their styles… as best I could. So, that was it. I made some 5/7/9 trips (remember that mall store named after the only sizes it sells?) with my mom or girl friends, did window shopping, and prepped to do emergency replacement surgery on my closet.
To quote a Cher-ism, I do have to give my younger self snaps.
I mean, in an era where I didn’t know super simple terminologies like “sweetheart neckline”, “V-cut” or “jelly heels”, I certainly found a way to seek them out anyway – and quickly. But it wasn’t easy. You see, in sixth grade, fashion wasn’t about who you were wearing, so much as what you were wearing.
SARTORIAL RESEARCH
If somebody asked you where you got your plaid miniskirt, matching knee highs, or mary janes – it wasn’t so that they could get snobby and look down their nose at you once you admitted it was from an some retail store or outlet; it was to commend your style and copy it… and then you could roll your eyes and pretend to be annoyed (instead the overwhelming flattery you really felt) when she showed up next week donning identical duds.
For us, “cool” or “cute” meant following certain trends. Before computers were even the norm (much less on a ready made phone) through which you could quickly ask Google, following those trends meant paying attention. I didn’t want to be the girl caught copying the identical style I’d admired on a classmate or (worse) looking stupid when I asked what that style was even called.
I learned that the hard way when I got this look for the first time.
Rather, I would make a mental note of exactly what my favorites were (think a personal mental polyvore or pinterest board) and how they looked, so that the next time Dalia’s arrived, I could thumb through, recognize styles, and match them with the descriptions. Then when my mom took me for new wardrobe additions, I knew exactly what to ask for… or describe at least.
Instead of my usual carping during trips to department stores, I began actively seeking out the junior’s section for what I learned were called “spaghetti strap” (not string strap) tops or babydoll (not undersized) dresses I saw my favorite actresses wearing.
THREAD-UCATION
I learned that there was a name for crop tops, that angora wasn’t as comfy (or cute) as I thought, what those little French hats were called, and that there was an actual difference between types and styles of jeans (cue to deafeningly angelic choir in my dressing room the first time I tried on boot cut jeans that fit my ass well, paired with my first pair of boots with heels).
God, I literally wore that getup until it broke.
But, don’t judge me yet: I have a valid excuse. Prior to that (and bear with me, because this is a painful memory), part of my closet included this horrible abomination I can only describe as “parachute” jeans. I hated them and I hated myself for being inside of them, but didn’t know what else there was out there yet. You see, GAP had this style of pants that were looser in the thigh and tighter in the ankle, and it ultimately made for this egregious end result that looked like a denim elephant with its foot being strangled by a ring of plastic . Here, let me find an example…
Well hell’s bells, they are called parachute pants, after all.
HARD LESSONS
Anyway, so I was trying, bless me. My mom was trying too: She’d just gotten me a perm for my lifeless hair and contact lenses, so I was slowly overcoming my former dork-dom of thick glasses (try to remember glasses weren’t half as cool as they are now… unless you were a member of Weezer) and the stringy lifeless hair that was my alternative. However, I didn’t know what to do with everything I had yet. I was just getting a feel for what looked good on anyone at all – much less on me specifically. In fact, it took a good long while to realize that just because something looked cute on Alicia Silverstone or Reese Witherspoon, didn’t mean it’d do me even a little justice.
Hard lesson.
Thus, on a really bad hair day with those godawful jeans, I could easily accomplish the highly coveted resemblance to a cherubic, pre-pubescent, handicapped boy. With a mullet. And braces.
While I looked like I was missing a chromosome, what I really must have been missing was a full length mirror, because I can still feel the horror that overcame me the day I had to witness myself playing back on camera (VHS style) for some seventh grade project we were doing. I was flabbergasted… and full of questions:
Did I really look like that?
Would this qualify as an emergency to leave school?
Can you go home “ugly” instead of sick?
How was I going to dispose of the bodies of everyone who had seen this tape?
Naturally, I learned from this and I started messing more in the mirror. My mom helped me learn little lessons about how to make flat roots have volume or how an elegant upsweep could temporarily distract everyone from the fact that I have a jaw like an angler fish.
I was allowed lip gloss – but until high school – no eye gunk (that’s probably why I overdo it now). So, in an attempt to mimic my No Doubt idol, I snuck on eye crap when I could and settled for some random red lipstick from the makeup aisle of CVS that I talked my dad into getting me. It was probably the very worst shade and the very worst brand. However, it was a very good wakeup call.
I learned really quickly that I was not Gwen Stefani.
But, but… What the actual fckk?! I remember thinking exactly that: looking in the rearview mirror from the backseat en route to school, wondering how it possibly was that my reflection kept staying the same. I mean, for god’s sake, I had on the red lipstick. Where was the big “voila”? Why wasn’t there an ethereal symphony of light, sound, stardust, harps, and chimes to morph me into the gorgeous singer whose lyrics I could by now recite by heart just as perfectly as my sister could with Wilson Philips?
PERSONAL STYLE
It would take me quite a few years to realize that some styles just don’t won’t work on you straight out of the box; you can only follow some trends so far before you either tweak them, or let them go altogether. I didn’t realize that “we’re all different and special” thing actually applied to me too. I mean, I knew I was a little slow and lost focus easily; but I thought for the most part, that was a self-esteem booster for people with serious afflictions or missing limbs.
Alas, the joke was on me.
It would be ages before I pinpointed the details behind the “I can’t tell what’s wrong with this picture” feeling that washed over me every time I caught my own reflection – how high and wide hips meant that I either needed longer tops or low slung jeans to correct the ratio, that “sand blasted” jeans make already wide thighs look even wider, or that you have to be super selective with white shorts and cautious with crew necks (I’m sorry but they just don’t look good on everyone).
Although I’d attempted diets through middle school, they were more of self induced guilt trips about eating; I only ever really skipped lunch and then someone would tell on me, landing me in the principal’s office. Sometime during high school, though, I finally found my first real diet. I traded my lunch in for balance bars, ate more protein, eggs, and turkey, did more jogging, and kept doing intensive volleyball conditioning for school.
The babyfat was finally disappearing.
The new, slimmer me accompanied a personality change into the happy dumb blonde I always wanted to be. Sure, I was faking most of that happy exterior, but who wasn’t? The depressed and friendless girl who spent lunchtime trying to cut herself in an open stall of the bathroom with the cafeteria’s plastic silverware. That’s who. And I’d have plenty of time in my late twenties for that.
The point is that it was easier to be selective about styles that looked good on my body type because I wasn’t confusing “I look fat in this” with “this style doesn’t suit me” anymore. The latter is a lot easier to handle; so what looked good became easier to identify and wardrobe shopping became a cinch – so to speak. I suddenly felt comfortable in most of what I wore. Also, I felt like I had learned a really important lesson:
If you’re skinny enough, almost anything looks good on you.
RETROSPECTIVE
Finally, I also learned that Cher’s character was spot on about “pictures” being far a far more reliable reflection of how you really look in lieu of mirrors. If I’d been able to take “selfies” back in my early years, my past fashion faux pas list would be far shorter. Maybe that’s why kids today are so much more stylish, self obsessed, and starting even earlier with it than I did.
Or maybe they just learned it from excessively vain parents who are too much like me.
Either way (duck lips and hipster glasses aside), at least they hopefully won’t look back and cringe quite as much at as I do over what turns out to be a painful personal retrospective irony: after trying so hard to match the image my cinematic and musical darlings’ designs (and missing the mark repeatedly), I only now realize that between my parachute pants, frizzy hair, and in-vain attempts to change the shape of my entire face with a tube of rosey Revlon alone, my early tween years in a word could easily be characterized as none other than… “Clueless”.
xoxo
<3~A