It’s only recently that I’ve been a huge adherent to daily outfit photos. I wish I had more photos of me as a kid, because fashion was just as important to me then as it is now. Here’s some of the clothing that sticks out in my mind when I think about my favorite things to wear when I was younger:
A pair of silver Unlisted wedge heels that I wore to prom, and then to every formal dance I attended throughout college.
A pale blue crushed velvet short-sleeve a-line dress with turtleneck. I wore it to homecoming with my friend Corey freshman year.
Crepe de chine slides with beaded dragonflies embroidered on their sides. I wore them until they fell apart.
I had a lot of clothes with dragonflies and butterflies on them. Most came from the Delia’s catalogue. I also had an enamel butterfly hair clip that I once wore with flared jeans and a tank top and my teacher said I looked like a flower child.
I had a couple of corduroy jumpers from American Eagle that I’d gotten at a discount at Valu-City. I didn’t tell anyone where they were from.
I remember when my mother told me in fifth grade that I shouldn’t tell anyone we shopped at Goodwill. In retrospect, I see now that she wasn’t ashamed of it; she was merely protecting me from the judgment of some of my spoiled classmates [whose parents didn't have the word "no" in their vocabulary].
The red poodle skirt my mum made whose poodle fell off and who had been washed so many times it was covered in little balls of felt.
The matching shorter blue poodle skirt she’d made me when I was younger, but that I still wore. [I wish I still had these.]
The sneakers with lights on them. I wore them for the first half of sixth grade. After that, my feet grew, and I got my first pair of knockoff Chuck Taylors – plaid high tops. I bought them on the eve of one of the biggest snows we’d ever had in Louisville, so I wore them indoors for the entire time we were stranded at our house.
The red dress I wore on picture day in kindergarten. After high school, I ran into a classmate from kindergarten, who remembered me by that red dress.
The white Old Navy dress and cardigan I wore for Easter the year my mum got sick, and then again for graduation, and then again for sorority initiation.
The black suit I bought for interviews and then wore for formal events until my mum died, where I wore it and read an Adrienne Rich poem instead of something from scripture.
The bike shorts I didn’t have the confidence to wear in public after I turned eleven and got weird about my thighs. [It should be noted that I'm a pretty skinny girl, but that doesn't make me any less weird about my thighs.]
The sequin-fronted dance costume I wore onstage and felt like a complete baller. The similar pink leotard with tulle sleeves and a matching detachable tulle skirt that I wore in class.
The blue nail polish I got at age seven. I’d seen it in one of my first issues of Sassy, and I loved that I’d never seen anyone wearing anything like it.
The gold nail polish I got at age eleven. My best friend and I painted our nails and then went to the pool.
The Chic jeans with the back seams and heart-shaped pockets that I used to tight-roll around my ankles and wear with a huge Middletown Elementary sweatshirt. My best friend had identical ones.
The green striped slip dress that I bought on clearance and wore in the summertime for years. I also wore it as part of my Margot Tenenbaum costume one Halloween.
The blue handbag from college that fit a reporter’s notebook perfectly.
The dress my mum made me with a black bodice and a gold lame-printed skirt. I wore it to the holiday dance in seventh grade, and I felt hopelessly juvenile around the other girls in my grade, who looked a little bit inappropriate in dresses they’d gotten from the homecoming section of our local department store.
The white feather boa I carried to prom. The tiara that went with it.
The innumerable rhinestone earrings I’d gotten for fifty cents or a dollar whenever a store was closing. I wore them in ballet class and sometimes onstage.
My first sexy underpants – four pair of sateen briefs from Victoria’s Secret, with a couple of matching bras. These were requested as a holiday present with my then-current boyfriend in mind, who turned out to be not really worth the trouble.
The one-piece Speedo suits I used to wear when I was tense about my body, and the two-piece boy short-and-halter combos I wore before I ever thought to be. The boy-short-and-halter combo I bought when I realized that I would never be a swimmer and that I’m thinner and in better shape than eighty percent of all women, so I don’t have a damn thing to worry about.
The eyeliner I used to sneak on before school in sixth grade. My mom had told me I could wear lipstick and mascara, but no eyeshadow. However, she never said anything about eyeliner, not even when I asked her to buy me some on her next Avon order.
The denim jumper I always seemed to be wearing in third-grade phys ed, and the somersaults I used to avoid doing as a result.
The pajama pant-and-tank top set I used to have with polar bears printed all over it.
The orange terry cloth robe I bought for the dorm that barely covered my bum. A true Don’t Show-cha Your Cho-Cha moment, indeed.
The music festival t-shirts that my dad had gotten free from an event that he worked in three different colors. I wore them at least three days a week.
The plaid flannels that I wore in my oh-so-brief grunge fashion phase. [I distinguish my grunge fashion phase from my grunge music phase because the fashion lasted me about eight weeks in seventh grade before I grew tired of feeling unkempt, and the music didn't really speak to me until I was well into college.] My best guy friend and my secret crush had a flannel in an identical plaid pattern. About three times during that year, we wore them on the same day. When it happened, I pretended I didn’t see him.
The navy blue crew-neck with cap sleeves I wore for my very first round of theatrical head shots. They turned out badly and I ended up using my school portrait instead.
The white canvas rubber-soled sneakers – cheap but trendy and long-lasting. I wore them with white jeans almost all the time.
The very first things I bought from Aeropostale – a navy shirt with trees embroidered on the front and a pair of relaxed-fit jeans.
The drop-waisted paisley-print dress I wore to my best friend’s rehearsal dinner.
The plaid linen shorts I bought at an outlet in Gatlinburg during a youth group retreat in sixth grade, which my classmates teased mercilessly.
The pink bow earrings that I lost on the night I held hands with my first boy. [He later became my first boyfriend. And much later, he became a standup commedian.]
The pink sweatshirt that my best friend had splatterpainted for me. After we stopped being friends, I stopped wearing it, but I kept it for a long time.
The heeled flip-flops I bought at Express and then walked until the heels wore down to the taps during the summer after college.
The white skirt with rainbow stripes that I used to wear with tank tops during my first trips to Cincinnati.
The grey twill dress with salmon and baby blue trim and bird embroidery. The zipper on it always stuck.
The Minnesota hoodie that I had to buy because I went to Minneapolis in May thinking it would be hot, but was sorely mistaken. I lost it sometime after 2005 and I have no idea what happened to it.
A pair of denim shorts printed with stars and moons. I wore them with navy tops and gold celestial-themed jewelry.
Infinite numbers of white roll-down socks. I kept them all long after I started favoring tights over socks.
Sam and Libby bow flats in seventeen different colors. I attached elastic ankle straps to some of them so they looked more like ballet shoes.
A pink yoked bubble skirt with an elastic waist that I used for a rehearsal skirt when I used to practice for Nutcracker auditions in my parents’ living room. Sometimes I wore a crinoline underneath.
A black tank top with flecks of glitter that I’d bought at 579. I wore it with black capris from Express, silver jewelry, and black plastic slide shoes. Clearly this outfit was based on Stacey McGill’s best friend Laine.
Numerous, countless pocket tees. I had them in about eighty different colors between kindergarten and fifth grade. My outfit on the first day of sixth grade was supposed to have been a pocket tee with my favorite jeans and sandals, but my mum [who worked at my middle school] and some of my teachers guilted me into wearing a Crosby Middle School t-shirt I’d received at orientation.
My black wind suit I wore over my dance team uniform on game days. [Because clearly eleven-year-olds shouldn't roam the middle school hallways in sequins and spandex.]
A striped baja jacket I bought from my Spanish teacher. Purple and grey. It was pretty, but it itched. I only wore it when it was really cold – maybe a total of six times.
Half-up, half-down hair. With bangs and without bangs. I never did the crispy-crunchy Aquanet bangs, though.
A white and green kilt that, on the second day of eighth grade, my frenemy told my teacher was too short to be in dress code compliance. She sent me to the principal’s office without looking. The principal rolled her eyes, looked at my skirt, and stepped out from behind her desk to reveal that she was wearing the same skirt. I went back to class with a reprimand for the teacher who’d sent me.
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