The 90's Came Back Different

90’s fashion seems to be back. I keep seeing wide jeans and loose t-shirts with random patterns again. Still something feels slightly off, more like it has been reconstructed rather than returned.

Back in the 90’s there were trends too, but the way we discovered them was different. Mostly through magazines, posters and MTV. There was no constant feed telling us how things were supposed to look. We were left to figure it out ourselves.

Clothes did not always match your intentions. You wore what you could find and what you could afford, sometimes not even close to what you wanted. We did not match our clothes in any coordinated way either, we were more like living circus tents walking around.

I remember getting a bright yellow Adidas jacket with blue stripes. Everyone seemed to have one. The color was not what I had wanted at all, but I was happy anyway. Having branded clothes was not something that happened often back then, so it felt very special.

I also remember the Adidas pants everyone wore with three stripes down the side. Mine were a wider budget version, not the real thing. They still had those buttons at the ankles you could leave undone if you wanted. I felt pretty cool.

Now everything looks selected and styled, as if the randomness is missing. And what is absent, of course, is the 90’s mentality. You had to be there to really live it.