Kickin' It Old School

Fashion is cyclical.  My friend buys clothes and accessories for her six-year-old daughter that look just like things we would have worn at age 6 in the 80's and early 90's.  Neon colors and high-waisted pants paired with a crop top (a la Topanga Lawrence) are making a big comeback.  The key is to add a touch of the new to make the vintage your very own.  Did I just refer to my childhood as "vintage?"  I must be approaching 30.

I put that wind chime there so I would remember to take it outside.  It's still there.

Well, this top is neither neon nor cropped.  And the shorts are high-waisted, but you can't really tell because they are covered by the shirt.  The baseball tee is a vintage staple, and I actually just bouThe coght this one this month!  The shorts are so high-waisted because I've actually had them for a really long time.  Maybe not since 1993 (I've about doubled in size since then), but definitely for a while.  The light blue undershirt is a cropped and fitted tank, but it wasn't always that way.  I think I got that tank in 7th or 8th grade, and I used to wear it as an actual shirt instead of an undershirt.  Oy.

The baseball tee is so sheer that in person (you can only see it a little bit in the pictures) you can sort-of see the high-waist of the shorts and the cropped undershirt.  The flowy shirt also occasionally gets tucked into the shorts, giving a peek of the shorts' waistline.  I'm not usually much for being "matchy-matchy;" I like to change it up and try new and interesting color combos. I thought that being matchy was another fun way to bring in the old school feel... pretty successful if you asked me.  The blue wedges match the baseball tee's sleeves pretty perfectly, and the undershirt is almost the same color as the shorts.  Add in the light blue hair tie on my wrist, and you've got some serious matching.  I thought it was another fun way to bring in the vintage feel.  I used to wear matching sweatsuits in the 90's... this is nothing.

I went to great pains (literally) to take a picture of the center-back exposed zipper.  Best appreciate.

How did I incorporate the modern?  For starters, the baseball tee has an exposed zipper detail in the back, a fairly recent trend.  Also, the loose-fitted top with tighter bottoms is a definite modern touch.  My shoes were blue suede sling-back wedges (my blue suede shoes!) which added a trendy twist.  Yep, summer suede is okay these days... but probably not 20 years ago.  Converse or Keds would have kept with the vintage theme quite nicely, just in case you want to go all the way back in time, dude.

Cowabunga!

~VeeLynn

Edit: My mother just pointed out that any shirt I actually wore back in the day would have featured a smiley face, peace sign, yin yang, or especially (what I considered my middle school trademark) a butterfly.  Those were darker times.

In This Outfit:
Baseball Tee ~ American Eagle Outfitters, Pre-Fall 2013
Shorts ~ S.O. (Some department store... probably Bon-Ton or Kohl's), ca. 2002? 2003?
Undershirt Tank ~ energie, (Ditto on the department store), ca. 2000?
Shoes ~ Mossimo (Target), Summer 2012