All my friends have one ….. (lighthearted)

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

Inspired by another thread, and being laid up on day 10 of a chesty virus which has put me on my arse, but feeling marginally better so…..

I’m in my 50s so completely out of the parenting / teen trend loop, but the thread about North Face coats took me right back to when I was about 14 and my Holy Grail was a pair of flat black patent ballet pumps with a bow…..

Oh how I begged and pleaded. My DM (rest her soul) was a stickler for rules and sensible footwear, and when we couldn’t get the right sort of sensible shoes one term she even took me to an “old lady” shoe shop for the most hideous pair of clunky T bar shoes I had ever seen…. Obviously very character building….. 🤣🙄

I remember my Step Dad came to pick me up from school when I was pursuing the patent pumps, and he gleefully reported he hadn’t seen anyone else wearing them so I was denied again…..

If memory serves my Nana saved the day in the end, causing minor friction, but I wore those shoes until they fell apart…..

So, back in the day, what was the thing that you absolutely had to have to win street cred among your peers?

I had callipers up to my hips so had hideous, brown orthotic boots. All I wanted was Dunlop Volleys (flat af tennis shoes.) Of course they were verboten. I wasn’t allowed any sneakers, come to think of it. I do wonder if that is why my ankles are now so weak I can literally flip sideways while standing still in the kitchen. I don’t think I was ever given the opportunity to strengthen my lower legs.

I'm an 80s child and always wanted one of these coats. My mum HATED them and I never got one. They came in kylie only, Jason only or both together inside a pink heart. That one I really wanted! Loved these coats!

Other things I wanted and eventually got were
Levi's
Kickers
Fruit of the loom sweaters
DMs
Reebok trainers

White Chipie trainers
Dungarees and a check shirt
Long pleated school skirts with knee length socks bagged down with DMs.

All crimes against fashion but I thought I looked sooooooo phat LMAO

A pair of leather clogs! I pleaded and pleaded with my mother to get a pair. After refusing for what felt like forever (meanwhile the cool girls at school were busy comparing theirs) she finally relented and took me down town to get a pair. God, I loved them - dark navy leather with a solid wooden base). They were expensive - and I couldn't bloody walk in them. It took ages to get home from the shop because my heels kept slipping out of the back - hurt like hell! Little did I know that the strap across the front could be pulled back to create a heel strap. I only realised this when the fad had gone (and the soles of my heels were wrecked forever!)

omg! I’d forgotten all about chipie. Popularised by the chic French exchange students who arrived each year by the coach-load to our school. Mine was called Helene. She was a 13 year old in pristine white trousers and a Benetton t-shirt. Tres chic!

Ear piercing.

On my first day at school I saw a girl with pierced ears, so I used to ask every day.

In the last year of primary school it seemed everyone had theirs done.

My mother relented when I was 14.

Also jeans. I was allowed one pair that could be replaced when I outgrew them or they fell to bits.

I remember the ski jumpers and also one year the rage was sheep jumpers. Everyone was desperate to find a ‘knitter’ to make them one. It had to be home knitted, not bought from a shop. Most were either red or blue with white sheep all over. Hideous things but I had to have one.

Oxblood Doc Martens. 1995. They were my only Christmas present that year because they were expensive but I wore them to death!

I was at secondary school in the 90s, Sprayway coats were a big thing, but the middle string had to be pulled in really tight. I never had one.

Also Pod shoes and Kickers.

If you had a bag from Shellys you were considered to know about these things. I begged my parents to take me. I probably then looked like Joey from friends when he kits himself out in Ferrari gear.

Also 53.
A khaki bag from the army and navy store that you wrote all over and got your friends to sign (eventually banned by the school due to swear words being written)
Over the knee socks with elastic bands holding them up and a gap between them and your skirt (discouraged by parents as looking like you couldn't afford decent tights)
Tight pencil skirts with very high splits (sent to the needlework room to sew up the split at lunch time and as a result unable to walk)
Little picnic baskets as handbags (cue random men asking 'what you got in there love, a ferret?)
Anything worn by Madonna from elbow length gloves to crucifixes (strongly frowned upon for the 'blasphemy')

I was desperate for a maxi skirt which kinda flared out at the bottom, Sarah in my class who was the COOLEST had one and she looked amazing. I finally got one and I loved it, I was cool for about a day, then a teacher at my school came in wearing the same one and it was all over for me. This horrible girl in my class kept asking me if I'd be wearing my Mrs Hastings skirt this weekend and everyone would laugh.

Similar happened with my leather jacket, I wore it once and another mean girl laughed at me and said how hard I was trying to be cool and still got it wrong and that my jacket made me look old. I never wore it again. I wish I had it now it was lovely ☹️

My school was really, really horrible. It was only when I went to college that I found my style and realised I didn't want to be cool I just wanted to wear tassle skirts and guns n roses t-shirts 😂

Oh I had forgotten little picnic baskets as handbags! I remember once I was walking along the high street with my picnic basket and some nasty boys from the neighbouring school put their empty drinks cans in it and I didn't notice until I got home 😂

Sounds like my school - those bags were so popular, Then the little woven bags. We had strict uniform so shoes, bags and piercings were little rebellions.

A golfing jumper with diamond pattern, made by Lyle Scott or Pringle, (the 1980s Casual trend hit when I was a teenager). Or a Benetton rugby top in blue or red. It was all about labels - Sergio Tachini, Kappa, Fila. I earned £3 from my Saturday job, so I’d probably have saved up enough to buy one by 2001. I should have just nicked a jumper from the local Golf Club.