Trends that you just can't "do" because of the fashions of your youth

[EoinMcLovesCakeJumper]

Not a very snappy thread title, but I shall try to explain! I was a teenager throughout most of the 90s and all the fashion magazines I read during my impressionable years said that:

Slim, properly shaped eyebrows are as good as a facelift
Bootcut jeans balance out a pear shape or heavy thighs
Tucking in your top emphasises your tummy
Ankle boots with skirts make your legs look shorter and chunkier

Consequently, I will never be able to embrace thick, drawn-on eyebrows, skinny jeans and jeggings, tops tucked into high-waisted trousers, or ankle boots with skirts. I am aware that this probably dates me pretty accurately to within a couple of years and probably makes some people think of me as frumpy, but I still can't do it!

I do think, though, that the principles I was told still hold true, but people now are just less concerned with "hiding" things like heavy thighs and tummies than they were when I was growing up. I wish I could feel similarly, but I guess it's just ingrained in my thinking now.

What recent or current trends have you struggled with because it went against advice you were given when younger?

This is how it is

That is why you can still see blue eye shadow and pink lipstick on those who had their heyday in the 70s

Maybe it is time to abandon those 1980s/90s fashion mantras OP

It is how we end up looking very dated

Also, ALL fashion advice is a load of baloney so why stick with any of it

Let it go....

Not so much 'advice', but it was social death to tuck your top in when I was a child/teenager, so I really struggle with the high waisted look!

Yes short trousers. Or indeed ‘Jack ups’ I just can’t do it.

I have bent as far as skinny jeans though. At a push.

You should always dress for your shape and not for fashion.

If bootcut jeans look better on you then wear them. Maybe team them with a top in this season's colours to modernise it a bit? Also look for fashionable accessories which you can change.

Belts- cut you in half.
High neck-makes your bust look bigger and matronly
Thin staps= chunky arms

Ha i still have the same bob i had in 1986 i do resist the lilac lipstick (sometimes,)

Scrunchies. Mom jeans. Big granny glasses. On the 20 somethings at work they look hip, on me it looks like I'm still wearing what I wore as a pre teen!!

The other day I did see someone wearing a massive t shirt, cycling shorts, a bum bag and big trainers. I swear I have a photo of me in 1991 wearing the same outfit.

I'm not sure. I'm fifty, but as much as I don't like the whole massive brow thing, I do fill mine in because thin ones are very ageing.

I'm quite happy in skinny jeans or jeggings, although have recently moved to straight, boot cut is still too nineties for me.

I'm happy to tuck in whatever, I think sometimes leaving it hanging out can make you look bigger. Like maternity clothing.

I've not worn ankle boots with a skirt, simoly because I don't tend to wear skirts and dresses. I suspect though I wouldn't.

I tend not to follow fashion as such, but I do think dressing with a nod to what's current is more youthful, rather than dressing like it's 1989.

I would love to wear these trends but they just don't suit me at all, being small and fat. They look so comfy.

TheHumansAreDefinitelyDead meh. If I really loved skinny jeans or ankle boots with skirts, I wouldn't let 90s fashion diktats stop me, I guess, but I don't - I think they look silly and unflattering. To me, being a fashion victim and wearing things just because they're "in", with no thought for whether or not they suit me, is worse than looking dated, but that's just my philosophy.

OverthinkingThis yes! It was what your mum used to try to make you do to look "smart" and as soon as you were out of her sight, the top would be untucked

I’m more likely to avoid something I wore a lot.

Eg A top with spaghetti strap dress over the top. I think it came in briefly recently although not sure many / any picked it up. But I’d not wear that again as I’d be more aware of that 20 year gap.

Bluntness100 I don't dress like it's 1989... I suspect I would be wearing high-waisted drainpipe jeans with a big belt, and definitely with a top tucked in, if that were the case. I did settle on slim-leg/mom jeans as opposed to bootcut, but I see that the latter is slowly coming back in, so I am sure I'll embrace it when it's time.

I'm with you OP. 90s kid and cant understand why people wear fashions which make them look worse! And yes to the high necks with big boobs looking matronly.

I agree with all the things you put I wonder if we’re the same age (37)

Personally, being tall I had a lot of trouble finding trousers which were long enough (various comments about trousers having fallen out with your shoes as they weren’t touching etc) so for me ‘ankle swingers’ are just a no no. I’d want a sign stating this look was on purpose and not just because I couldn’t find the right length.

Corneliusmurphy I'm 40, so yes, that would explain it. The ankle-flappers with socks thing looks a bit Max Wall to me - I am assuming that the people who are wearing them are too young to see it that way, though.

All those trends you mention are probably down to being influenced by the stuff older people can’t do as well, so that too.

Although I do do some of them - skinny jeans, tuck top maybe

Crop tops!

I know what you mean. I am addicted to v-necks (to flatter my generous bosom) and a-lines (to balance my pear shape) - mostly down to the commonsense/brutal fashion advice of Trinny and Susannah. And ankle boots with short skirts might look fab on lissom teens, but they DO make the stumpy-legged look stumpier. You only have to look at the unhappy models on the M&S website to see that.

Mind you, I seem to remember bias cut skirts being pushed on the pear-shaped in the 90s as a 'flattering skirt shape' when in fact they just made it look as if your arse had slipped down to your knees at the back. And that weird trend Trinny tried to start, of wearing a white vest peeking out under your cropped jumper.

I’m mid twenties and 100% believed that bootleg jeans ‘balanced out’ one’s figure! I was also told that thin eyebrows ‘opened up your eyes’... Great thread!

Apart from fashion trends I hate (cold shoulder tops) the only thing I can’t do is go out with a bra strap showing. Most women today aren’t bothered by that at all. My DD even buy bras with pretty straps deliberately.

I will never wear those flouncy, dropped-waisted dresses that make you look like one of those animals toddlers make with a potato body and stumpy, little toothpick legs. I went through the eighties the first time without going there.

PowerHooper Oh, bias-cut... I'd forgotten about that. Even at the time, I was unconvinced by how those skirts and dresses hung over a less-than-flat stomach, but they were literally all you could get at one point so I went with it. There's no way in hell you'd get me in it now.

justilou1 potato animals! Yes, they are a bit awful, aren't they? There was a thread on here very recently where a poster who didn't get along with floral sacks was advised to lose weight because they hang better on tiny, fragile bodies. Personally, I think it's a better idea to wait for the trend to go away, as it's bound to within a year or so.

I had a dropped waist dress. It was beautiful. The first time I wore it, my then boyfriend said " That dress isn't very, um, sexy". It made me feel such a frump, I never wore it again.

I tend to dress for my shape. I tend to cling on to things too long.
Did midi skirts in the past and can't do them now.

Ankle grazers, ditto, and too many memories of annoying comments on 3/4 trousers to go for the ankle grazers - and I'm not long legged My legs are fine they go all the way from my bum to my ankles but they don't need the shortening effect.

Never did potato tops - weren't they for fuller figured women? I have skinny square shoulders.

Strangely, I am ok with what I wore as a teenager. Skinny jeans etc,

Slug eyebrows are hideous. Contouring makes teenagers look grubby-faced.

I resisted the whole Trinny and Susannah thing. Collarless jackets and A-lines would do nothing for me. Dresses with trousers? no thanks.

Couldn’t agree more, @Eoin! Especially as my tummy is already bias-cut after carrying twins!!! Can’t tell you how often I’ve “sat it out” waiting for more flattering things to come into play, while my “these will have to do” clothes went to crap.

Also, I’m not 19, 6 feet tall and soigne. I’m 47, nearly 5ft1, slim but curvy and disproportionately shaped according to clothing manufacturers. I am technically slightly underweight and I have been told to lose weight as well!!! (I will refrain from sharing my reaction... it was rather loud and sweary.) It’s taken me this long to work it out. Obviously I’m not going to become a naturist, so I have worked out that Japanese clothes are made for people who are closer to the ground than say, Scandinavians. I’m looking to them for inspiration and finding clean lines, simple designs and jeans that fit and flatter for the first time in my life! (Also things that wash well!)