90s fashion revivial & trendiness

Last weekend the big indie music fest Pitchfork was here in Chicago. Sadly, since I bartend on the weekends, I didn't get to go, though a couple of my regular customers came in to tell me about the bands and show me pictures of all the hipsters in their crazy outfits. The trend of the weekend apparently was porkpie hats. My friend said she wanted to ask one of the hat-wearers how they felt about all the other hat-wearers. Did they feel as though they were among their people? Or were they kinda pissed that their accessory of choice had become a trend?

I read an article in that week's TimeOut Chicago about the trends that they expected to see at the fest and apparently in both music and fashion, the early 90s are back! I guess I was kinda clueless that they ever left, seeing as I'm someone who still wears a Nirvana t-shirt paired with thermal underwear beneath holey jeans (though I traded in flannel for hoodies back in 1997) on a casual day and rocks a babydoll dress when dressing up.

Admittedly when grunge hit and the thrift store clothing and Converse sneakers that I'd been made fun of for wearing for years were suddenly popular, I was kinda pissed. (Though of course none of the trendy people bought their thrift store clothing at actual thrift stores, they got it for full price at the mall.) I'd created my own style based on what I liked and could afford and I'd taken so much crap for looking the way I did and then suddenly everyone else looked like me. Mildly annoying. But I just kept wearing what I liked and waited for the trend-hopper to move on to their next thing which was.... Hmmm, big pants if I remember correctly. (Note: my fabulous combo of both thrift store flannel and cardigan over the Nirvana shirt in the picture of me at 15 on the left. And, yes, those are Walkman headphones I'm wearing beneath my fabulous 90s headwear.)

I went through a couple other fashion phases in my late teens/early 20s. One of which was goth... right before Marilyn Manson got huge and everyone went goth. In response to that, I modified my gothiness into glam/goth. You know, kinda David Bowie-inspired fashion. I also had a brief personality crisis where I started reading Vogue and caring about labels. This quickly passed because I was far too poor for that sort of thing.

So I'm back to my usual grunge/punk style that I've been rocking since I was twelve... though it's probably heavier on the punk than the grunge. I'm finally at the place where I'm sure of myself, so I don't really care whether what I'm wearing is a fashion statement or not, all that matters if I like it. But I'm going to be highly amused if TimeOut Chicago's predictions come true and we see the return of flannel and all things early 90s this fall. Because if that's the case, once again I was on top of a trend without even knowing it.... On Tuesday, my new book, BALLADS OF SUBURBIA, came out and it happens to be set in the early 90's. So here it is, the perfect literary accessory for the 90s revival:

What about you? Are you always up on the latest trend? Ahead of the curve? Behind it? Don't really care? And what style is classic you, the way early 90s fashion is classic me?

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