Fashion Forward

Neon leggings, fishnet gloves, greased back hair, thin scarfs, and flared jeans: Bingham High School has seen it all.

But even so, while Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have brought us the decade defining fashion trends like see-through heels, YEEZYs, and holes in your clothing; most of the trends we use today are taken from previous decades.

Teen fashion didn’t really differentiate from adult trends until the 1940’s when kids began to have disposable income as a result of entering the workforce during WWII. Teenagers wore sweaters and tall socks with saddle shoes while dancing the jitterbug and, according to Hilary George-Parkin for Who What Wear, girls shocked the world with the scandalous popularization of the bikini, which hasn’t gone out of style since. The over-romanticized 1950’s were similar in trends with poodle skirts and sweater sets. However, the decade also brought some of the trends we use a lot today such as high waisted jeans, bomber jackets, and tighter pencil skirts.

If you walked into Bingham during the 1960’s or 1970’s it wouldn’t look too far off from what we wear today.  According to Vintage Dancer, while older women idolized Jackie ‘O, teen girls modeled their fashion from that of Hollywood star Brigitte Bardot. Bardot wore mini-skirts, printed capris, pantsuits, and pointy-toed shoes; these trends were copied by the youth of the 60’s and carried into today’s fashion. In the 70’s the hippie era brought us peasant blouses, jean jackets, platform heels, preppy sweaters, and small round sunglasses people are trying to bring back today.

Most of us think of the 80’s as a nightmare of fashion, but they actually brought about a lot of what we copy today, the most prominent being leggings. While the leggings back then were brightly colored a lot of the time, they were still a big part of fashion trends. Women also rocked the power suit while both guys and girls wore shoulder-pads in their jackets. The 90’s gave us a lot of denim. But they also gifted us with flannels, overalls, chokers, and turtlenecks: all of which have been brought back into style just in time for our high school experience.

We usually think of fashion from the 21st century as horrific or old-fashion, but we have copied a lot of what they wore, telling us that we aren’t too different than the generations of miners that have passed before us.