Anyone want to come and mourn the reality vs expectation of new purchases with me?

Culottes were big in the 80s

Can't beat fat match. Although I did have an ill advised bleach blonde crop in my late teens.
Theory - edgy, cool, indie kid.
Reality - Gazza.

Does anyone suit culottes?

If it makes you feel any better, in the late eighties I had a pair of trousers that had one black leg and one leg that was covered in a fluorescent pattern. I wore it with a fluorescent green top.

In my defence, my mother forced me to wear it. The faces at the family barbecue I had to attend thus attired still haunt my dreams.

Lentilbaby
I had a pair of khaki Bermuda shorts. I am small. I looked like Lofty - just missing the pith helmet.

OMG I’m cringing in embarrassment

Er.....Bermuda shorts anyone? 🤦🏻‍♀️
Please don’t let it only be me.
I’m sure they were super fashionable at some point in my early (I stress EARLY!) teens?

Remember when Aran was in?

Brown corduroy trousers, a pair of flat monks, a big Aran jumper and a huge red perm.

I looked like I had lost my céilí band.

I went through a phase of wearing a pair of brown slacks that my mother had made for me, a shirt and one of my dad's beige cardigans and brown ties.

What the actual FUCK?

I looked like I'd done a body swap with a retired civil servant called Ken. All I needed was a Rover 500 to complete the ensemble.

1984; stripy tights bought at Kensington Market (lived many hours away in a town with no 'alternative' shops)

Expectation: Queen of the Goths
Reality: Widow Twanky

I bought some dungarees with the expectation I'd look like Cher in The Witches of Eastwick, wearing them over a vest while cycling joyfully and sexily.

Reality: chubby apprentice carpenter late for work, complete with oil stains where flapping pants got caught in the bike chain.

Oh, god braces! I had matching red braces and thin pleather plastic red tie. What can I say, it was the 80s.

I have a tummy, and always have, so 90s me in dungarees=Daphne Clarke about to give birth.

Oh, I loved my dungarees - I refuse to admit that I probably looked terrible. I tell dress-hating dd that I went to the equivalent of prom (aka the Leavers Disco) in baby pink baggy dungarees with a bright yellow chambray shirt underneath. And that I wasn't some kind of rebel but that this was definitely a Proper Thing to wear.

I kept my braces. DS has taken them on his skiing trip. To wear as part of his lederhosen on the night they all dress up for Tyrolean evening.

They were never a good look for me - I looked like a chimney sweep extra from Mary Poppins.

And braces.

Loose denim jeans with no belt loops so you had to buy braces to hold them up.

Match them with a smart shirt or slouch with a T-shirt.

My 'look' alternated between 'slummy Sloane' and some demented Marcel Marceau tribute act.

With the Crystal Tips perm from Hell.

Dungarees. What the FUCK was I thinking.

There was a short phase of mixing and matching scruffy denim and smart accessories.

Think Picture 1. Smart, stiletto shoes with turned up, baggy dungarees.

Although fat and short, I wanted to look like that.

I ended up looking like Picture 2. Prisoner Cell Block H.

My mother made me have a short back and sides until I was about 8, she also made me wear petticoats, (WTF).
I used to put the petticoats on my head to pretend I had long hair.
I have a really round face and once, in Infants someone described my head as a globe.

Anyway, moving on "sexy underwear", no, just no, ouch and lots of itching and rearranging.
I just appear to have fleas, and by the time it's taken off I'm more begging for calamine lotion, rather than action.

Fuck it, I've gone

ROFL - low level sex offender

What was it about the 80s that was yellow and polka dot? I don't appear to be the only one.

Not so much of a style thing, but that Hush ruched skirt? I only expected to look like the model. And I pretty much did,when I put it on. Totally respectable suitable for work knee length pencil skirt.

Except that the bastarding thing rides up, so just in those few feet I needed to walk from my car to the office, in full view of dozens of male co-workers, I looked like this

Me, on getting done up on any night out.

Expectation: winsome smile
Reality: low level sex offender.

Black leather biker jacket.

Expectation: effortless chic rock chick

Reality: Dave Lister from Red Dwarf.

When I was 13, my mother took me to her hairdresser for a cut, blow dry and, inexplicably, set. Even the 'stylists' were sniggering. I came out looking like Margaret Thatcher Jr.

Not that I can improve much on that even now. My much-loved and skilled hairdresser said to me once 'you just don't have funky hair.

Teenage fashion?
Gawd
I spent my teenage years looking like the footballer Chris waddle circa 1987 - complete with mullet 😣
I had;
A red polka dot ra ra dress
A yellow dress with a geisha on the front (?)
A red jumpsuit that i paired with tartan pixie boots
I was quite the fashionista 😂😐