To wonder why creosote tans, blinding white teeth, false eyelashes and BIG hair....

[lazyhound444]

became the norm? I appreciate that not all young ladies adopt this look (my own DD being one of them) but I couldn't help feeling a bit skiffing through my DS's Instagram last night at the endless duck face pout selfies of young ladies he goes to school with who all look exactly the same because of this current "uniform". It just made me feel a bit depressed. I'm 48 but when I was young we had a bit more diversity and of course we were au naturel. AIBU?

[TheRealAmandaClarke]

I think we're fooling ourselves if we believe that teems today are more susceptible to peer pressure and fashion tends than we were tbh.

[nkf]

Have teenagers ever cared about individuality? Don't they want to look like part of a group? Different groups but still in groups. That look makes them look older which is probably what they like.

[DarlingGrace]

It depends where you live, and minute differences locally as to roads and schools which have the more wealthy parents, therefore the professionally achieved look - salon dyed or home dyed? Eyelash extensions or off the market self glue on? parlour spray or home tan with orange palms?

if you gave me two girls side by side attempting to look like this, I could tell you which one comes from Bromley and which one from Bexleyheath.

Every era has 'a look' - mine is 80's rimmel make up ....'shade/shap/shimmer' trio blusher, black cherry/heather shimmer lipstick, blue eyeliner. Ghastly, but we were gorgeous!

[ithaka]

My teenage DD looks lovely (she wears skinny coloured jeans, bright pink DMs, leather jacket, beanie hat - so cute).

My nephew, who is the same age, is gorgeous, but he does do that ridiculous trousers round his ankles with practically his entire boxers showing. His wee bro does it too. I send all my time itching to hoik their trousers up.

So this is not a girl thing - girls are not inherently sillier than boys, all teens like to follow a trend. I am just lucky my girl doesn't want to look like a 'plastic' (that is the term used here for the TOWIE style girls). The crowd she hangs with is quite arty, designery, so that is more her look (she does have geek glasses, but she is shortsighted)

[Cringechilli]

It's kind of funny taking about teens wearing the stuff as eachother when most of the mums at the school gate wear a "uniform" = skinny jeans, boots, puffy coat!

[Philoslothy]

I'd be more bothered about my daughter calling other girls plastic than a bit of back combing.

[nkf]

What do the glam girls call the scruffy girls. Didn't Liz Hurley call the rest of us, "civilians?"

[KatieScarlett2833]

Why is it ok to denigrate young women by calling them names like plastic?
Why is it MN top trumps to stealth boast about how individual their DD is, when they are anything but.
Bitchy, judgemental and nastiness is ok as long as it is about young women. Nice.

[AntoinetteCosway]

'I think the look is porny and that's what's upsetting about it. I think that there have always been tribes of teen girls but it's the genesis of this look that's the problem.'

I agree with this ^ entirely.

At the last (girls) school I worked at they weren't allowed to wear makeup. Most of them didn't and were fine with it but one girl came up with the cunning plan of shaving off her eyebrows so she'd HAVE to draw them back in, figuring that black scores brows were less offensive than no brows. She was so unimpressed when that girl from Educating Yorkshire shaved hers (similar dyed black hair too) and she had to put up with people telling her how similar they were for weeks and weeks!

[daisychain01]

Youth is wasted on the young! Under 25s can get away with all that, and now the age of the Selfie (which is a sign of the me me me era we live in) means we are regaled with streams of images on a minute by minute basis.

Social media, instant fame (with zero talent) and cheap technology really doesnt help!

I suppose the big power suits complete with massive shoulder pads, Farrah Fawcette tousled hair / Pammy Ewing dowey eyed look and girls with lips like an oil slick from JR Ewing's oil well are equally as mock-worthy....

[CheerfulYank]

I agree, 'twas ever thus.

I wore very little makeup, had turquoise stripe in hair, Cranberries tshirt, knicked my Dad's work shirts, ripped jeans, converse.

Just a fashion :)

[daisychain01]

And just to show a good balanced argument, WHY oh WHY does every lad under the age of 20 need to blow dry their hair forward a la Harry Styles so it looks like they have come out of a wind tunnel backwards, OR spike their hair up Bart Simpson like .. to go to school?

[spanky2]

I was a goth then grunge. I had to hide my dms too to stop my dad polishing them! I don't get the painted on eyebrow either.

[TheRealAmandaClarke]

Its my belief that some ppl dislike this look in young women because it's very sexual. Mocking the girls results from insecurity and a fear about their DPs responses to them IMO.

[badtime]

I've forgotten who was wondering about why the young girls look so beautiful.

The reason they look so beautiful to you is because you are old.

Teenage you and your friends probably appeared more beautiful to the older generation than you ever realised.

[spanky2]

It is true about school mum uniform. There are two distinct groups at ds2's school. Step ford wives wear leggings long socks boots/jeans and boots, quilt style coat, natural hair and invisible make up and and air of self satisfaction. Rough mums( that is really what the step ford wives call them!) wear skinny jeans, ugg boots, super dry coats, bleached hair and heavy make up.
I think fashion defines social and age groups. We are pack animals and seek out our group.

[badtime]

TheRealAmanda, that may be the case for a few people, but I don't think so generally. I think this is just another case of older people not understanding 'the youth of today'.

[TheRealAmandaClarke]

And it's all been said before.
Did anyone's parents ever complain that they wore too little/ subtle make up?

But the extreme combover thing was always an odd look.

[Sparklingbrook]

I accept that in the 80s I probably looked a bit of a state, and thought I looked the dog's doodahs. But I never-

Looked ten years older than I am
Looked Orange
Had awful eyebrows
Had 'toilet bowl white' teeth
Pouted like a duck in front of a dirty mirror with clutter in the background for a picture to be shown to millions.

Progress eh?

[TheRealAmandaClarke]

Yy I agree badtime

[KatieScarlett2833]

I think it is convenient memory loss regarding ones own teen fashion mishaps, mixed in with snobbism. Which is an unfortunate look on any adult woman.

[usualsuspect33]

If the technology to take selfies etc had been around back in the day we would have all used it.

[KatieScarlett2833]

Oh god yes. Selfies in my day consisted of endless Photo Me booth snaps kept like a pack of cards in my purse to show to anyone who stood still long enough

[Sparklingbrook]

Do you think usual. I would like to think then that I would have removed the pile of dirty underwear in the background and Windolened the mirror beforehand.

[TheRealAmandaClarke]

It's just got more sophisticated, the technology and the products.
And it's not just teens. Plenty of adult women spend plenty of money on tanning and nails and hair.
And Botox
I think other decade's looks we're more disposable ian way.
Whereas I can't imagine a return to a time when ppl (well, women) aren't expected to enhance their appearance. I don't think there'll be a revival of a truly ungroomed or natural look because there's no money to be mad from it. In failing high streets butchers and free grocers have closed down and betting shops and nail bars and spray-tan shops are everywhere.
Long hair, suntan, white teeth have always been desirable in western women. Now we sadly have the technology to achieve it en masse.