1. Solid Color Tights 2. Heart Print Tights 3. Detour Boot 4. Bobble Sweater 5. Dimensional Eyeshadow 6. Solid Color Tights
Oh, this is fun. Pure, unadulterated fun. If you’re an 80’s child, this is the outfit you saw teenage girls wearing and thought, “I can’t wait until I’m a teenager! I’m going to dress like that and I’m going to be SO COOL!” Then the 90’s were pretty much a joke at your expense. “Hey, kid! Psst! Yeah, you! Looking happy and cute is for nerds! Here, I got you a flannel and some ripped fishnets! Why don’t you go lock yourself in your room and listen to Radiohead while you cry, loser! Drown yourself in baggy denim and wallow in deep, morbid reflections like you’re the Crow or something! Oh hey, why don’t you fill out some student loan applications while you’re at it? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”
This is your big chance, cowgirl. This is your ticket to redemption. This is your remix, this is your salvation. The 90’s were crap, and as the years went by everything got inestimably worse, from popular music to poverty, from war and plague to predatory lending practices, to our beloved free country wantonly submitting to totalitarian capitalism and our society committed to a strict avoidance of reason. But look. Look at this little chink of light. Like a sliver of sunlight straining through a crack in a prison cell, we present you with the costume of your youthful fantasies. A soft, woolly, tunic-length sweater, adorned with multicolored knit bobble pom poms. A bananarama yellow belt. Tights in any color of the rainbow, and tights freckled with hopeful little hearts. Boots! Oxblood red or emerald green sensibly-heeled ankle boots that are a symphony of decades: a smart military silhouette, a perky but substantial heel, and the favorite fall hues of today. Paired with your sweater and tights these will have you hot to trot, and with the judicious application of some candy-colored eyeshadow the overall look evokes Marisa Tomei in Untamed Heart, the movie that inspired legions of romance-obsessed girls to become waitresses. The real beauty, the secret beauty, is that when you’re wearing a snuggly sweater and have forgone pants, you’re basically wearing your pajamas no matter how finger-snapping fine you look. Things can get weird, but there is some small comfort to be had if you know where to look. Aren’t we lucky that we can find it in a handful of pom poms, a cuddly knit, and a little pop of color.