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

[Swimminguphill]

I bought this beautiful jacket online. In my mind I'd look like Blondie in the 80s, very rock and roll and all round awesome. In reality I look like a giant angry teddy bear/yeti. I have broad shoulders and a bust although slim in general, and it doesn't do me any favours. I wanted it for ages and it's now sold out, and so the joy of getting it in my size just in time is sadly wasted. It is a beautiful jacket - just not on me! Anybody else want to come and mourn reality vs fantasy with me?

Oh god I'd blocked this out

Yellow cord dungarees
Expectation: casual student wear

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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 😂😐

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.

Black leather biker jacket.

Expectation: effortless chic rock chick

Reality: Dave Lister from Red Dwarf.

Me, on getting done up on any night out.

Expectation: winsome smile
Reality: low level sex offender.

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

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

Fuck it, I've gone

ROFL - low level sex offender

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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?