Top Ten Trends We're Glad to Leave in Childhood
Some fashion trends are awesome, chic, gotta-have-em…until, suddenly, they're not. As soon as a passing fad has passed us by, whatever show-stopping shoe, bank-breaking bag, or sensationally stupid skirt of the moment can suddenly go from the only thought on your mind to "what was I thinking?" These ten trends from childhood may have seemed totally tubular at the time, but now all that remains are some truly hilarious pictures—and a whole lot of regret. Do you remember wearing any of these ridiculous styles as a child? Grab an old photo album and find out!
1. Bubble shirts:
Right around 2001 these took the tween world by storm, selling out at every Limited Too across the country. Also known as "popcorn shirts", this terrifying sartorial creation starts out small enough to fit your American Girl Doll (anyone else try to fit theirs on the actual doll?) and stretches to fit any size. They're cropped, tight, weirdly puckered, and one of the most unflattering garments in existence—but they're almost too fun to resist!! ALMOST. No one wants to revisit their sixth-grade school picture more than they absolutely have to.
2. Bike Shorts:
As their name suggests, these supremely heinous shorts are for ATHLETIC PURPOSES ONLY—that is, they're long and tight enough to wear on a bike without chafing, riding up, or getting caught on anything. That said, they have no business whatsoever off the bike trail, and yet we all wore them as children. They hit a few inches above the knee, too long to be cute and too short to be considered cropped leggings. Back in the 90's they came in all sorts of tacky patterns and colors, and for us lucky children there were MATCHING SHIRTS. Anyone else own a pair of bike shorts with tiny flowers and a t-shirt with a giant matching flower in the middle? Luckily, by this decade the bike-short silhouette lengthened to the much more flattering legging. Let's hope it stays that way!
3. Slap Bracelets:
Once a coveted fashion accessory, now a dangerous and tacky weapon, these bracelets swept the nation throughout the 90's, making it as far as our elementary school classrooms before they were largely banned for their potential for physical violence (things could get pretty crazy on the playground, after all). They're made of layers of flexible stainless steel, and they start out flat but snap to fit your wrist when you slap them on. They came in such classy incarnations as neon, animal print, sequins, and my personal favorite—fuzzy. Only problem was, it really hurt to keep slapping yourself! But fashion is pain, after all.
4. Platform Sneakers:
Clunking onto the scene in the early 2000s, these shoes look like they belong on the feet of "Hey Arnold", but somehow they found their way into the wardrobes of millions of middle schoolers. Offered primarily by the classiest of shoe retailers, Steve Madden, and available in classic, clog, and rhinestone-encrusted styles, the ubiquitous shoes made the wearer six inches taller—SIX INCHES—but offered absolutely nothing in the way of fashion. Oh well, they looked totally cool with our knee-length madras Capri pants and bubble shirts, right? Right???
5. Body glitter:
At the time we thought we 7-year-olds were the only ones wearing this woefully misguided hair accessory, but turns out adults were wearing them too! What was the world thinking? And as if it wasn't bad enough to wear two of these little translucent clips on either side of your head, the majority of us took it to the next level and made a whole row of clips on our crown, like a tiara of tackiness. They came in lots of neon and pastel colors, therefore they matched perfectly with our floral bike shorts and platform Steve Madden sneakers! They were just absolutely impossible to take out once gym class rolled around—and who wants to do a headstand with ten clips sticking out of your head?
7. Jelly sandals:
Also known by the cutesified nickname "jellies", these horrifying sandals came somewhere on the fashion calendar between Tevas and Crocs, and are possibly the most unfashionable "fashion" sandal of all time. Made of luxurious PVC in such rich and understated colors as Pepto pink and lime green, and frequently infused with glitter to catch the summer sun, these shoes were supposedly convenient to wear at the pool or beach, despite the fact that they got soaking wet and dripped in water and tracked sand all over the place. But they matched so well with our Speedo tankinis and heart-shaped sunglasses!
8. Scrunchies:
If the Scrunchie wasn't a fashion crime before, it was given the ultimate stamp of OVER when Carrie Bradshaw told Jack Berger that no woman would be caught dead running around New York in one. They're essentially hair ties on steroids—covered with (often brightly-colored or velvet) fabric, volumized to take up your entire head. We wore them through elementary school, way up high and to the side, a mini-army of clones of Kimmy from Full House—and let's admit, we thought that was a good thing at the time. I'm holding out hope that scrunchies will come back as an ironic statement—they did make our hair look totally awesome, after all.
9. Livestrong Wristbands:
The time was summer 2004. Lance Armstrong had just survived testicular cancer, and he launched the Lance Armstrong foundation for cancer research. The foundation introduced a bright yellow wristband as part of their "Wear Yellow Live Strong campaign", selling for $1, to raise money for the foundation…and the rest is history. Celebrities started wearing the yellow wristband, and the trend quickly trickled down throughout the country to our schools. What started out as a simple idea for a charitable endeavor turned into the biggest jewelry craze between slap bracelets and Silly Bandz, and resulted in a national obsession. Stores all over the country sold out of the little yellow bands, causing hundreds of counterfeit retailers to make fakes and thousands of sellers on eBay to jack the price way up, completely defeating the wristband's original purpose. They spawned a wristband craze, with tons of other foundations and organizations selling the brightly-colored rubber bracelets left and right until kids were walking around with a stackful of bands every day. The fad may have passed, but it was for a good cause!
10. Velour tracksuits:
Whoever decided that that tackiest of '80s trends, the nylon tracksuit, would look cooler when translated to velour must have been on some very serious drugs. When Juicy Couture took the trend and made it high-end, tracksuits moved from the senior-citizen set to our ninth-grade classrooms. The pants are comfy, sure, to wear as pajamas, and the shrunken zip-up jackets are almost understandable on their own, but what was really scary about this trend was that everyone wore them TOGETHER. A hot pink velour jacket is jarring enough with jeans, but with hot pink velour pants it's almost blinding. And some tracksuits even came with a trashy message on the butt, usually utilizing the word "Juicy" in some pejorative sense—totally inappropriate for us tweens, but somehow our parents let us spend a hundred dollars on them anyway. Thank goodness we can leave this trend in the past (unless our last name is Kardashian)!
For now, all we can do is thank the fashion gods for retiring these trends for a while, and wait patiently for the day when UGGS finally disappear from the scene. But while these trends may seem more horrifying than Lady Gaga's meat dress today, the fashion calendar dictates that in ten years they could come back cooler than ever—so don't throw away those Juicy sweatpants or that elementary-school Scrunchie just yet. They might come in handy, at least for a seriously awesome 90's-themed party costume!
