The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Clothing as a kid was... justifiable. It beat being naked. The choice of clothing though was, at best, not always ill advised, right? It was the 90s, which meant nothing matched. Hey, If the good Lord had intended clothes to match, he wouldn't have invented the word "radical"! There were a lot of bold, primary and neon colors, whites, and blacks. There were patterns and random designs, all competing for attention. Clothing was just one big billboard of designs, lettering, and color swabs. It was "fresh" and "urban" and "rad." It was bulky and swooshed around a lot in the wind, and usually layered. Your body was somewhere inside it at any given time, but exactly where was often hard to tell. It was cool. Jeans were usually stonewashed or bleached, or were either so baggy dudes looked like clowns, or were so high-waisted you could get your belly button lint caught in your zipper (Pre-faded? More like "pre-wedgie"). And I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't caught alive in all of this crap while growing up.

Before we begin on our head-to-toe safari of 90s artifacts, I have to preface this with an admission: I wore visor hats a lot back in my early years. Mine was a green plastic visor though. It never really kept the sun out of my eyes but I always thought it was absolutely stylin', although I could never, ever, ever, ever, ever keep the thing on my forehead.

And speaking of head gear, what could be more "all-American boy" than the classic backwards hat? It may be the most iconic "boyish thing" there is that doesn't have to do with being a dumbass or pumping out some kind of bodily function. Needless to say, I was the all-American boy (in every uncomfortable sense), so at times (when I wanted to look cool), I admit I wore a backwards hat. But you can still do one better. See, you wear it forwards, you're uncool. Dweeb! You wear it backwards, you're cool. Ex-cel-lennnt! But... if you wear it sideways, that was just... "too cool." Show off! Yeah, it was all too easy to fly too close to that sun. You could only get away with rocking it sideways if you were black, because they really are superior to us whites. Heck, that's why it's the whites who need their own wash cycle! Bring on the bleach.

Moving south, there was also a strange thing back then that I never even really noticed until I got older and started looking back on all this with a more observant eye, mostly because it was just Earth as I knew it back then. There was a strange thing in the 90s with color block designs on clothes, usually asymmetrical and once again, restricted to primary and neon colors, although purples and teals were common. It infected everything, T-shirts, button-downs, pullovers, coats... you name it, and it usually took the form of at least four realms of colors divided up arbitrarily on the apparel. It was like, sure, we'll have all the colors at once on the shirt, but they are not to intermingle! Each sleeve, each pocket, a different color! Like, let's just stitch together any random piece of fabric together, make it look like it's patched together, because that's just gnarly brah.

For example, you might have a color field on the chest divided in half (and not down the middle), with one side being blue, the other side being yellow, the sleeves being green, and the pocket being red. Or, you'd have a blue sleeve on one side and a green one on the other. Or you'd have a four-way split on your shirt, with one shoulder being green and the other being yellow. Or, you'd have one half being red and blue vertical, horizontal, or diagonal stripes and the other side being solid green...etc.  I don't know if it was just a Tommy Hilfiger thing, or what, but I definitely wore it.

And let's not even get started on the "windbreakers" (because their name sounds too much like an easy fart joke, even for me). Usually they were so over the top with their flashy colors and patterns you could see them from a mile away. They were also always bulky and made you look 30 pounds heavier, draping on you like a circus tent (and often looking like one too) until out the bottom your stubby chicken spandexed legs were just sticking out. Pretty rad, although if you were light enough, the wind could potentially take you away. Seriously, on the water it would be called sail boating.

Now if you were doing the grunge thing, which I often inadvertently and advertently did, your options were fewer. Flannel was essential. It's not grunge without flannel. And even as a kid I knew the rules of flannel. I remember schooling myself on it... okay, you NEVER button flannel, you wear it as outerwear and just let it dangle. The more frayed it is, the better. Under it, a plain-white-T, or a black one, or some kind of rock design, with bonus points for week-old food and pit stains. If you weren't draping your shoulders in flannel, then it absolutely HAD to be tied around your waist. No exception. Kurt Cobain set down the rules, and who were we to change them? It instantly made you the cool kid in school, and the more like a slacker you looked, the better.

Moving even farther south, under your flannel shirt tied around your waist, you had these wrapped around your naughty uglies. They were invariably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Power Rangers, or if you were lucky like me, Jurassic Park. Once again, no exceptions. If you were a girl, they were probably My Little Pony or something. It was the 90s. But if you were unlucky enough to just have regular old tighty-whites, half the time they weren't all white anyways, if you know what I mean. Hey people, they call them "unmentionables" for a reason! There was a time when any glimpse of your underwear by others was the most embarrassing thing you could endure, especially if you were wearing shorts. But then sagging and low-rise jeans became popular, so now just flashing your TMNT underwear for all to see is encouraged.

Sticking around your waist also was an accessory even more dreaded and yet just as ubiquitous. The fanny pack. It's one of those things where the less said about it the better, and mostly it's been banished to the 90s, but any archive footage of the era will inevitably unearth its sordid existence. First of all, the name is terrible, but besides how questionable it looks and sounds, at least it had a pure intention behind it. I mean, a backpack you hang off your shoulders. A wallet you keep in your pockets. What is so gosh golly darn wrong with a strap around your waist where you can hold your daily things in? I mean, for 90s kids, those were typically Game Boys, Pogs, Pokemon cards, and maybe a Ninja Turtle action figure... but essentials nonetheless. Somehow, this innocent and practical idea for a body accessory in execution soon became a... "no, just no." Maybe it's because it became a bit too fashionable among fat moms and dads strolling around Disney World with these things belted around their massive guts.

Now, you typically wore things on top of your underwear (usually, except on Saturday mornings), so that's where we'll head next. Fair warning! I had a few pairs of hot neon tribal shorts as a kid. Wanna make something of it? Yeah, I had some in pink too. Absolutely mesmerizing designs. If I had pictures of my dorky self wearing them all hiked up around my thighs, I'd show you, but I think any shot the camera must've taken of me in them self destructed from the sheer intensity of the dorkishness it was taking in, fashion wise. Fun to fart in. Funky, "fresh," poppin', primary color explosions of shapes and lines on bright neon fields... I mean, I seem to remember an All That skit with this hilarious super villain dude. When carrying out his dasterdly deeds, he'd bend over and tell his victims to "now stare into my butt!" and they'd be hypnotized by this spinning, whirly pattern on his ass. Yeah. That's what they call satire.

But even that is way more defensible than most of what passed as leg-wear in the 90s. I mean, come on, unless you were hanging onto some spandex from the 80s, or rocking sweat pants, you were stuck with 90s jeans. And how on Earth did they screw up something as pure and beautiful as "jeans" so badly? For both sexes! The 90s had the most crimes committed in the name of "reinventing jeans" of any decade. Whether they were stone-washed or gigantic baggy JNCOs, bootcut, or pre-faded with rips, what the hell happened? Jeans were so simple in the 80s. Taut and functional. You could even run in them! In the 90s they turned into... I don't even know what... baggy, bleached-out abominations. They were either so loose they fell down (for guys) or had waists so high up and tight they were forever to be called "mom jeans" thereafter (for girls). The perpetual wedgie-wear or a new tripping hazard. I guess they were trying to be all urban, but dang dog, since when does "I'm street cuz!" mean you need parachutes around your ass? (And the less said about "parachute pants," the better.)

And so, on that note, we end our little journey at the bottom, with something the 90s finally did right. And they didn't just do it right, they perfected it. Sneakers! I mean, once you got tired of your unisex Zebra pattern Hummel loafers because they kept falling off your feet, man oh man you were either a lucky kid rocking some LA Lights or Air Jordans or Reebok Pumps or Sketchers Hot Lights or Chucks or Heelys... or you were going to bed dreaming up ways you could suck up to your parents to buy them for you. I mean, you showed up to school with these bad boys, you were a Class-Act. You could do no wrong. They were huge. They boosted you up another inch. And they turned you into a walking target (and not just because they lit up). Let's just say, some kids went home in their socks. And if you had to be kicked in the nuts that day, it was an honor to take the hit from a pair of these, because 90s sneakers are the sexiest of all apparel by far. They are nothing but just pure, absolute, sex. Heck, maybe I've just always been sneakersexual.

And oh yeah, socks were socks. They smelled like death.

So there you have it, the head to toe rundown, 90s edition.