Revenge of the 80s

First I kind of laughed when people (my mom especially) started wearing leg warmers outside of dance class. Again.

My laugh was more of a grimace when I heard Miami Vice was back, this time as a movie. A movie that critics seem apologetic at liking so much despite how basically dumb it is.

And my grimace turned to outright swearing when I saw the latest trend is, wait for it, leggings. You may remember leggings from their front-and-center turn in my college years, striped ones, patterned ones, black ones. Worn with long flowy shirts and paired with chunky shoes. Sound familiar? The flowy shirt is now a bubble shape and the chunky shoes are there, this time as sky-high platforms.

I am also sorry to report that it doesn't end with skin-tight legwear that ends at the ankle. As I was glancing through my special edition of In Style magazine,* I paged through tips on how to wear jumpers (!) and neon so it didn't look too 80s. Too late!

I guess what I'm confused about is this: is the fashion industry so bereft of ideas they can't wait even a generation to reach back into the worst fashion mistakes of all time and bring them back? Is this some kind of sick joke?

Well, I will not be wearing any of those items mentioned above. What will I be wearing? At The Grocery Store, not actually a food market but a boutique out in my 'hood, the assistant manager suggested a turquoise cashmere sweater with a skull decked out with a jaunty red kerchief. I think she took offense at my reaction (pure hilarity) because she said quickly: "skulls are very now. Haven't you seen Pirates of the Caribbean?" Great, so when it's not the fashion-industrial complex telling me how to get dressed, it's Disney. Arrrrrgh!

*Yes, I subscribe to In Style. Why? I'll tell you. I like fashion, but I could care less about reading about it, or any faux-celeb reporting with its obsequious PR-machine formulaic crap that gives me little dirt and lots of useless details about what kind of shampoo so-and-so uses. With In Style, I look at pictures. No reading required. 'Nuf said.