Posted on 05/12/2006 7:26:17 AM PDT by qam1
Dressing like your daughter doesn’t make you look hotter—just stupider.
Creepy futurist/author Douglas Coupland once wrote that in the 1960s, everyone dressed as if they were 35 years old—but that by the ’90s, that age had dipped to 25. Alarmingly, it didn’t stop there, and one wonders if Coupland—were he not currently embroiled in increasingly weird artistic pursuits—might not notice that in the few years since he made his point, masses of adults have taken to dressing like 15-year-olds: a trend that, if it continues, should by the 2010s center on sippy cups and purple overalls.
Men get partial credit for this descent—but puerile as it is, men’s fashion is now less pointedly teenaged than women’s. Flip-flops, board shorts, logo tees and scruffy hair are hallmarks of the contemporary men’s look—but guys have a long history of resembling the homeless. The current surf hobo thing is but the latest devolution in their casual wear.
No, it is adult women in their 30s and 40s—particularly in Southern California—who have taken up the standard, and who now dress like teenagers. They are the new Teen Moms, a demographic that is pack-like in its affinities (crossover SUVs, satchel purses) and equipped with the financial capacity to indulge its most egregious whims. As we will see: elsewhere in the world, women with money—and women who dress as if they have money—may expend their shopping energies on classic jewelry and durable designer pieces. But not here.
Forget refined, elegant style and aging gracefully. The aesthetic raison d’être for an enormous cabal of Orange County women is one of battle: of slaying each passing day with a fiery sword of Botox. For them, the next big trend has become less about the serene simplicity of a Ralph Lauren offering and more about what their daughters drag home. The new Teen Mom—clinging tightly to youth’s untucked shirttails—has no qualms about pillaging cuts, colors, fabrics, brands and stores previously reserved for her female progeny, with their nubile bods and nascent ideas of attractiveness.
And she and her ilk are everywhere: grown women with adult lives and mature bodies, flitting through grocery stores and dog parks in hot-pink Juicy sweats, sequined tank tops scrawled with some declaration of foxiness, and pigtails. Bad taste taken to the next level, theirs is a situation rich in irony—the more pains middle-aged women take to resemble young girls, the more obvious their age becomes.
From the bottom up, Teen Mom wears a sort of “Barbie’s Closet” collection of separates: a mix-and-match of items whose colors and textures resemble Target at Easter. Her footwear is either stilettos or flip-flops; shoes are usually sequined, snakeskinned, accessorized and brightly colored. Her jeans are, obviously, upscale boutique denim—tight of leg, sculpted of ass, low of waist. Her sweats are not sweats at all but tightly fitted velour pants in burnished shades of pink, purple, green or blue. Her miniskirts may be denim—in the tradition of the Cougar (the Cougar is but one or two genera away from Teen Mom)—but they are more likely short and ruffled: a style worn last year with Uggs by real, live teenagers.
On top, Teen Mom varies, but she maintains a fondness for some combo of tight-ribbed tank tops, T-shirts and zip-front hoodies. Enormous sunglasses and some form of gaudy jewelry—costume or real, so long as it looks cheap—complete the look. Which leaves only the hair: blond. It is rare indeed for Teen Mom to have hair that has not been colored very, very blond; on this style point, her clan’s consistency is truly stunning. Think Amy Poehler as the dizzy, clueless teen queen mom in Mean Girls—a character intended as a Teen Mom parody. Yet, aside from one movie moment where a lap dog nibbles her presumably artificial nipples without her noticing, the character seems less an exaggeration than an absolutely spot-on tribute. But are her real-life counterparts in on the joke? Or do their Roxy tees somehow imbue Teen Moms with rock-star confidence or the fashion frisson moment of This is my destiny outfit?
It’s not as if Teen Moms are physically ill-suited for their assumed wardrobes. Thanks to spectacular amounts of leisure time spent on workouts, grooming and ignoring food, Teen Moms are usually rail-thin, with cut and refined prison bodies. It can be incongruous: as I discovered yesterday in the line at Starbucks, the bird in front of me with the legs and a** packed into the awesome jeans, the teeny hoodie, the bleached-out beach hair, and the Quiksilver ball cap was not, in fact, in her senior year. Her voice, which I heard when she ordered her skim-decaf-whatever, belied her youthful outfit. But her face, which I saw when she migrated to the drink pickup counter, was ravaged by sun and age: deep lines cut across her cheeks and neck, screaming to be filled in by five extra pounds of middle-aged softness.
Every generation of teen girl finds new ways to piss off her keepers—bralessness, ratted hair, Madonna gloves, genital warts, Dr. Martens—but generational payback doesn’t work if Mom embraces your tight jeans and cropped tops. Your only remaining option is to outdo her, and today’s teenage girl knows how, thanks to the likes of Mischa, Lindsay, Mary-Kate and Paris—especially Paris—celebrities who are actively sexual and look it, and are scarcely out of their teens. So she gets pedicures, carries purses, and aspires to heels and Ace bandage-length skirts—starting at an age when “style” should probably be more about what clothes are best for playing soccer.
Tina Fey’s Mean Girls character, the teacher, solved the problem for us two years ago: “You’ve got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores,” she said in the film—in one of the most trenchant exchanges I heard that year. And everyone learned a valuable lesson, in less than two hours—but in real life, we’re stuck with the teen queen Reginas and their psuedo-hooker wear. They’re not going anywhere.
If she's built like I am (fairly straight up-and-down, not a lot of waist but not a lot of hips either) she can wander over to the men's department at Target and buy the men's Wrangler jeans. The relaxed fit fits almost anybody and they are DIRT cheap.
I have never been able to wear women's jeans, though. If the waist fits, I could smuggle an entire family of illegals in the seat, and if the seat fits I can't breathe.
If she actually has womanly curves, the Limited has a high-rise jean that my daughter buys.
I never understood the rationale for paying $220 for a pair of denim work pants.
"Your wife needs to get on the Internet and start shopping at Cold Water Creek and Talbots (if she likes classic clothing).
Don't forget Chico's. :) Thanks for the suggestion of Talbots. I'd forgotten that one as a possibility.
I refuse to dress my 6yr old in a tee shirt that says raunchy stuff on it. I would rather dress her in boys tee shirts then what I see out in the malls. Some of the stuff out there is not age-appropriate at all.
Im 35ish and wear the same jeans and rock t-shirt style I have worn for 20 some years. Funny thing is I get carded for buying alcohol on a regular basis and my fiance' who is 8 years younger than myself never gets carded. which she can't figure out (I tell her its the white hair--she has albinism, makes her look older than she is, then I get smacked so I stopped saying it).
BS. Two words - Ann Taylor.
Boys/Mens jeans are absolutely the way to go if your wife doesn't want to web shop. Not only are they cheaper and more comfortable than what is available in the women's department, but my experience has been that they last longer as well. Win-win.
I do tend to hate how slobbish way people dress nowadays. I'm probably somewhat acclimatized (unfortunately) to the trashy/slutty, tattooed-freak 'look' that the youth find so spiffy, but it sure is dismaying seeing older folks looking like unkempt slobs. Out shopping, I'm seeing seniors in tacky t-shirts, sweats, etc., often with their guts hanging out. Twenty years ago or so, I always found a bit of solace in the dignity and decorum that the older generations presented in public, but in the past few years all that has been coming to an end. Slobby dressing just does not command respect.
For classic good clothing, Ralph Lauren is my first choice, which I buy on sale :)
sw
I'm not saying that many of the comments in the article aren't right on, but geez, this writer must be a total dog--or if a guy, a real geek--to have to knock other women so badly! (and that goes for some of the respondents in the thread too!)
I dig MILF's, sorry. Have dated a lot of them, and most of them have made a very good living for themselves and their family, are very intelligent, funny, and some are even conservative.
But damn, if they got it, why not FLAUNT IT!
That's the great thing about this here country of ours. You dress as you see fit, or feel comfortable, and others do the same.
If you don't mind me asking, do you try to shave a few years off of your look, or do you attempt to look 60-ish?
I just saw two of these in the local pizzeria last night, one mother and one who was either an older aunt or something.
The mother was wearing skin tight leggings with a not-long-enough shirt and an even shorter sweat jacket. Turns out she dropped some change and I had the distinct pleasure of seeing every cellulite dimple scream into the material. Looked like crumbled bleu cheese in a papertowel.
The older aunt or something was wearing those jeans that only go to the knees and very tight white top. The problem here was not down low but up top. The shirt exposed what little chest she had but something was wrong and, like a car wreck, I looked. Let's just say they weren't round or firm.
Oh yeah, the daughter.....she was 250lbs easy and working on a calzone like a maggot on rotting flesh.
Here here. Or is it hear hear?
Actually, in the '90s people were dressing like they were 15. The '90s still won't leave. I hate the "style" (lack of) that started there and keeps hanging around.
Jones New York seem to fit me the best. I have to try on 10 pairs of other brands to get a good fit.
I'm using this "slut" phase to my advantage.
I've found styles in the last two years that remind me of the 1940's (having long legs helps) and I get complimented almost daily.
Men and women alike appreciate class and find it very sexy.
"guys have a long history of resembling the homeless"
No, they have a long history of GETTING A PASS for looking like homeless.
Men, like women, regularly looked good until (drumroll.....as usual....) the '60s. Once the hippies took over EVERYTHING went downhill. It's all about "comfort". Which I think is BS because the only thing that looks nice but doesn't feel good (usually) to me is shoes.
That and the ones who are wearing pants with words plastered across their butts. It's so degrading....your son must be pretty smart.
Has she tried Chico's? They are in most malls. I only went in one briefly, looking for something "after 5," and they didn't have anything along those lines, only more casual stuff. Their target customer is the woman who wants to look up-to-date but doesn't want to show off her navel.
Second that. Talbots makes very nice business attire with classic lines. Liz Claiborne (for casual wear) and St. John's Knits are also good bets.
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