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

I think I had a custard yellow strap top and matching full skirt with patch pockets. I think I spent the summer covered in flies and I look dreadful in yellow.

And on the yellow theme

Mustard paisley dress from 'Country Casuals' when I was 16 (only dress shop in the town)

Instant 80 year old chic. Like a REVERSE Bobfoc (body off baywatch, face off crimewatch). Anyone walking behind 80 year old Laurie would have been mighty surprised to find a 16 year old from the front.

Now, teenage fashion buys need their own thread, surely! I remember buying a pair of white cropped leggings with black polka dots in the sale can't think why they were reduced and wearing them around France one summer holiday . Mmm, legs as black spotty sausages, anyone? At least, I made a lot of these mistakes in the 80s, everyone else was dressed appallingly too!

I'm so very, very glad photos were scarce and expensive in the 1980s .
. .

Which reminds me of my very much loved black parachute silk Vivienne Westwood dungarees. Absolute bargain from a second-hand clothing seller that I used to chat up as a broke student & who saved me things noone else would wear things she thought I'd like.

They were the most expensive item of clothing I'd ever bought (£15 2nd hand in 1988 )

Shame that they were designed for someone of 5' 10" and I'm only 5' 1". In all the photos where I'm wearing them I look like a drunk toddler who has stolen her mum's clothes.

I could add the custard-yellow polka dot batwing jumper and matching knit custard yellow mini-skirt (from same seller - she saw me coming that one), but at least I intended to look barking quirky whilst wearing that outfit.

Oh god I'd blocked this out

Yellow cord dungarees
Expectation: casual student wear

Result: OBVIOUSLY La La (teletubbie) wearing an even bigger nappy

I should point out that this was about thirty years a long time ago. These days I have a little more sense

I can top that PurpleStar with a hippie patchwork jumpsuit (with sleeves) bought from a market stall in Amsterdam. Doesn't help that I'm very short, the jumpsuit was both very baggy and considerably too long, and the sewing together of the patchwork had been very half-hearted.

I looked like a stoned lost toddler dressed in rags.

I once bought a pair of purple patchwork dungarees. I was a teenager and can't even imagine what I thought I would look like.

The unsurprising reality was I looked like a fat toddler that got lost in Glastonbury and fell in with a gang of stoned hippies.

my mum took me to the hairdressers in the late 70's for a Mia Farrow-esque gamin waif haircut despite me having very thick wavy hair.

I looked like I was wearing a woolly hat for 2 years. Grew it out into a German helmet Purdey cut that wasn't much better.....

I've only read half of this and I'm going out in an hour so this is a shameless place mark as I've been making strange whimper/snorts at my desk. Hilarious!

I have a couple of shockers, but the ones which really stand out are the rose-gold pleated midi skirt (undercooked Turkey), and the bottle green corduroys (Buttons).

I also have a pair of cropped tropical print black and white trousers which my family loathe and I love. Comments about them have ranged from "oh Mummy, not ANOTHER pyjama day", "uh, love, are you going to get changed before we go out then?" And "oh, I didn't think LBOCS2 was ready as she's still in her pyjamas". I am ignoring the haterz.

Given a bottle of Anais Anais, DS wanted to know why anyone would call a perfume Anus Anus
Result? Donated to church tombola

Oh @TossDaily Please don’t taint the DMs! 😱 I live in my cherry red 8 holes after recently giving birth 😳

Nnnnngggnnn

Don't do it !!!! You know you'll look like a dustman !!

I think someone needs to stage an intervention. Thanks to the attached article, I suddenly want a pair of black DM boots, like the ones I used to stomp around in twenty years and two stone ago.

Something tells me I'd be more Millie Tant than Dolores O'Riordan these days...but...but...

@MNHQ can this be put in classics ? Just for all of us poor victims of fashion to refer to in the future when we make another cock up fashion error!

@quirkychick
poodle mullet city a la Europe The Final Countdown

Ah! More 80s hair regret!

Expectation: Lisa Stansfield-esque gamine crop with kiss curls. To be sported with red lippie and a hint of glamour.

Reality: several people asking if I'd been inspired by Ruth Madoc as Gladys in Hi di Hi (apart from my mum, that is - she just stared wildly for a seconds too long and declared it was 'very ... umm... butch'

herecomesthesun I think I went for that kind of Farah Fawcett/Dynasty flick but long at the back, looked great at the hairdressers but unless blow dried and toned, poodle mullet city a la Europe The Final Countdown. The 80s were a bad time for curls, despite the popularity of perms, not great products and lots of style that really, really don't work with curls. I have actually embraced my grey silver, but find the trick to not looking like a granny is not to have frizzy hair. Long silver curls, good, long grey frizz, bad.

Another one with terrible 80s perm regret. I thought I'd look trendy and gorgeous but in reality looked like the bastard lovechild of Jimi Hendrix and Mad Lizzie from breakfast tv. Worse still, it featured on my passport photo and I was stuck with the memory for ten years!

PS no offence to grannies, it is just nicer for my 5 year old if people think I am her mum!

@quirkychick also have very curly hair. Hairdresser went for Farah Fawcett look in around 1980, I could never never replicate this at home. I tried layers and looked like a puffball of fluffy frizz, I cut it short and that was worse because I could not tie my curls back.

It still looks great straightened by a hairdresser, but I wear it long and embrace the messy bun.

This just about works if it is coloured, I look like a granny if I embrace me grey unfortunately.

With regard to my green dress/snake ensemble , I'm sure people must have been whispering 'Does anyone know why John's brought Hissing Sid to the party?'