I am still going to physical therapy three days a week. I'm grateful that my therapist is a young woman who, along with being a Wofford grad and very good at her profession, is extremely chatty. She can always take my mind off discomfort with her stories, especially about the various adventures she and her boyfriend and their crowd of 30-something friends have. Ah, to be young again!
Today's stories involved watching the USA v. Portugal World Cup match in Greenville. It seems that she was more interested in scoping out the fashion plates in the crowd than in following the game. (Sure can't blame her there. I don't get soccer either. Of course, I still haven't figured out hockey, basketball, or baseball, so I guess I'm just not much of a sports person. I think I only understand football due to spending four years in marching band, watching our home team get pummeled on a regular basis...)Anyway, my therapist noticed that many of the 20 year olds at the event were wearing high-waisted denim shorts. "Just like the 1980s!" I laughed. She was of the opinion that they were the most hideous things ever. And...you know what...I think she has a point. While I'm no fan of very low hip huggers, when I look back at pictures of myself in college, I shudder at my high-waisted jeans that would have given any pair of grandpa-in-a-retirement-home's pants a run for the money. Yikes. It didn't help that I had what my mother referred to as a "pot belly" which the high-waisted pants and tucked-in shirts only accented. If the time machine is ever invented, I don't want to go back and witness some grand historical event, I just want to zip back several decades and give myself some fashion advice. That, or steal my best friend's camera so she can't record all those disasters for Throwback Thursdays without end.
Now, admittedly, young women with great bodies can get away with wearing high-waisted denim shorts. I'm sure these teenagers/twenty-year-olds think they've discovered something grand. But the fashion historian (and survivor) in me can't help but think...ick. No. Not this again.
Of course, fashion does have cycles, and yesterday's trend is today's vintage. With the popularity of shows like Mad Men and so many big movies (American Hustle, Wolf of Wall Street, and even X-Men: Days of Future Past) set in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, the later decades of the 20th Century are having their moments. What's next, "power suits"? "Jelly shoes"? "Leg warmers"? The mind boggles and the blood runs cold!
So what fashion statement of the last 40 or so years do you hope is safely locked away in the past and won't be unleashed on a runway or sidewalk near you anytime soon?
