90s Throwback

I’ve loved fashion ever since I was a little girl. As soon as I knew how to walk, I would be found exploring my mum’s wardrobe trying on her heels, playing with her jewels or just marvelling at all of the colours and prints – you can’t being a magpie if you were born in the 80s! My love of fashion didn’t abate when I hit my teens. I swapped playing with my mum’s wardrobe with experimenting with my own, taking inspiration from the copies of Vogue I bought with my pocket money. 
I didn’t realise it at the time, but what I loved most about fashion was that it gave me the ability to express myself. Teenage years are tough, it’s difficult to process and understand your feelings and emotions verbally. I definitely found it easier to express my feelings through my clothes; lying on my bed in a crop top and baggy jeans listening to No Doubt, in head-to-toe Adidas in the park or in a brand new citrus-inspired outfit from New Look.
The 90s were a riot of fashion highs…and lows. I’m grateful I grew up in a time where self-expression and rebellion were at the forefront of fashion choices. I saw fashion through fresh eyes, every trend was new and every page of Vogue served as inspiration. A couple of decades on and I know that fashion isn’t always new; it’s cyclical and if you observe the “20-year rule” you can anticipate what trends are going to reappear based on what was in vogue 20 years ago… *gestures vaguely at the resurgence of sportswear, streetwear and grunge*. 
As a kid, I used to kick it in the likes of Adidas, Kappa, Fila and Tommy Hilfiger. While Adidas is a perennial fashion favourite, the other brands were at their best in the 90s and slowly faded away after the millennium, making way for dubious trends like velour and double denim. Thankfully, they’re back thanks to the 20-year rule, sufficient time has passed for fashion nostalgia to resurrect them. 
While I remember brands and trends the first time around, the beauty of the 20-year rule is the original trends are reinterpreted. So while I would wear a full Adidas tracksuit with matching kicks in the 90s, nowadays I prefer to offset sportiness with a touch of sassiness. Much like in this post where I talk about how I like to style hoodies, I have to make sportswear my own by adding a heel (of course) and a cheeky flash of skin to keep it looking cute. What do you think of my look? 

Top – ASOS

Tracksuit bottoms – Kappa

Heels – Dune (similar)

Photography by Adorngirl.