“The 90s are Vintage”, now there’s a phrase to strike fear into the heart.
One minute you’re laughing at photos of your mum’s stupid 80s outfits, then you’re begging to borrow them, and the next people are sniggering at your memories.
Selfridges in London has just opened a concept store in partnership with vintage purveyor Rellik, including designer items from Comme Des Garcons to CDs, books and VHS (ah, VHS). It made for a rather sobering trip down memory lane: Absolutely Fabulous, The Verve’s Urban Hymns, Mr Nice, a very youthful Kate Moss. For a small exhibition, there’s a lot of iconic stuff, and also some rather touching memory-jolters: Leo diCaprio’s baby face on the front cover of a magazine, a Sony CD Walkman (“anti-skip”!).
I would like to point out that for a lot of the 90s, I was growing up in the back end of nowhere. I was too young for acid house, didn’t notice grunge, missed out on Britpop. But even paddling in the slipstream of style, I must have picked up on something, because, wandering around Selfridges, my eye was caught by many familiar gizmos of yesteryear, and I remembered craving platform shoes (a la Ginger Spice alas, not Vivienne Westwood) and a pale pink Baby-G watch.
In the selection of vintage clothes courtesy of Beyond Retro there were spaghetti-strap dresses (oh God the shame of my mum making me wear a T-shirt underneath mine to the school disco) and denim shorty-dungarees. In a moment I was back there: Clarissa Explains it All, Party of Five, The Babysitters Club, Whigfield, C K One, TLC, Titanic, 2 Unlimited, Body Shop White Musk gift sets, crushed velvet ski pants from Tammy, padded headbands.
What things from the Nineties do you remember, and which do you hope you never, ever come back?
I feel your pain, I was made to wear t-shirts under strappy dresses to the school disco too! Don’t think I’ve suffered too much from it though in the grand scheme of things, though at the time it seemed like the end of the world…
For me it has to be jelly shoes WITH HEELS, clear rubber embedded with silver glitter. I wore them on the last day of primary school and almost broke my neck several times. I cannot believe my mother let me wear them…
I remember jelly shoes too – so sweaty! Also remember those awful hats that folded up at the front.