7 X FASHION FROM BACK IN THE DAY

Now that I've been 26 for a few weeks, my surroundings find it super fun to constantly remind me that I'm “almost 30.” I'm not really sensitive to that, and I often feel more like a teenager than an adult, but something happened on Wednesday that suddenly made me feel ancient. While everyone was busy with Germany - Brazil, my best friend texted me that Hitzone 70 just came out. SEVENTY. My first Hitzone was, I believe, number 11, and the idea that we are now at SEVENTY makes me feel the wrinkles rising. Because apparently, I have become an adult somewhere and also seem to be terribly old and damn closer to 30 than to 20, here are some fashion items from my youth (also known as the stone age) that we, sometimes for good reasons, no longer wear but are fun to reminisce about (often out of shame) and think about the past.

1. Spaghetti strap top over a regular t-shirt

I don't know exactly what went wrong when this became a trend, but I do know there was a moment (I must have been 10) when I absolutely wanted a ‘top’ with spaghetti straps so I could wear it over my white shirt. How hip that was, wow. Very rarely, you still see a woman walking around with this combination, and I always want to ask if she has a time machine that takes her back to 1997 and if I can borrow it sometime. Not for that spaghetti top, but just because time travel is cool. 

2. The necklace that looked like you had a tattoo

It went effortlessly with your spaghetti trend, a kind of braided band that was super tight around your neck, making it look like you had a tattoo around your whole neck. HAHA LOOK DAD LOOK MOM I HAVE A TATTOO HA-HA. Seriously, what were we thinking?!

3. MAG shoes

Oh the horror, these kinds of clogs with colossal soles were the means to prove that the 12-year-old you was super cool and happening. With laces or without, high or low, you had them in all shapes and sizes, and they were all equally ugly.

4. Bomber jacket

This is one of those things that is now completely hot but which in my mind is primarily associated with gabbers, and then with my teenage years. You wore an army green one with a bright orange inside, those were the real ones. You also had blue ones with a non-orange inside, but those were for the wannabes.

5. Overalls

Together with the bomber jacket, the overalls have managed to fight their way back into the wardrobes of 2014, but I'm skipping this trend for now. I still remember well that I bought a bright blue and a bright orange pair of overalls at Hennes and Maurits (back then we still called it that, instead of the current ‘H&M.’ And the abbreviation was ‘Hennes.’ I'm just going to Hennes for a bit.) Somewhere in the summer, it was way too hot for that thing, and I was eagerly counting down the days until I could wear it. The model of those overalls was just a little less charming than the sexy festival overalls of today, but that didn't dampen my fun at all back then.

6. The small bowling bag

Small bags were absolutely the shit, the smaller the better. Preferably round with a completely impractical small handle and where exactly nothing fits, but which was super duper mega awesome. 

7. Eastpak versus Kipling

Next to your hip bowling bag, you of course also had a backpack for the 45 kilos of books and lunch boxes you had to take to school every day. Especially in high school, there was a clear and life-important division between Those With An Eastpak and Those With A Kipling. The Kiplings were for the nerds, the Eastpak for the cool kids. And there were always those super cool boys who changed the word ‘Eastpak’ into, for example, ‘lastpak’ with type-ex. So rebellious!