When style was king.....

Amanda and I were having a conversation the other day about clothing we used to wear when we were kids--my mom would always take Kris and I to "Rochelle's" in Foxboro to get clothes, and Amanda would always get Gimbles or Michelle hand-me-downs. THEN, I was talking to Josh, our school cop, about sneakers, and how when we were in high school you were virtually DEFINED by your footwear. All this got me thinking about clothing from when I was a kid....And I know I have made reference to some of these before, but whatever....

I had one pair of these silly Z Cavaricci jeans....I remember when I got them too; my mom got them for me at Filene's Basement in Downtown Crossing. What silly pants these were, known for their high waistband and "double" buttons.....if you wear them, you had better be an Italian Soccer player, otherwise you will look silly. Also, they were tremendously overpriced..... I could go on about sneakers forever! Here is a picture of some old Nikes I found. I disagree with Nike on so many levels, and refuse to wear anything made by them. An evil company. But I digress. Some former Nike shoes that used to be paradigm for high school students like myself: ProMax, Air Pegasus, ACG (all conditions gear), Air FLIGHT, Air Flight Light, Air Jordan, Air FORCE, Air YOUR MOM, Cortez (aka Dean Prohaska), and Air Max.

I won't even go into the whole Reebok Pump silliness, but there were also so many more trendy shoes: Old school Converse (not All Stars, not "one stars"....just regular CONS), Reebok Hexalite, Roos, LA Gear (remember those "Michael Jacksonish" shoes they made? They were black and they had like chains and big zippers on them?), Etnies, Vision Street Wear, Simples (wearing them today), Tretons and Keds (for girls), and Ryka Nitrogen. Today's version of all these silly shoes would be "Keens." When those things go out of style in a year or two, they are going to go out of style HARD.

If you wore one of these shirts:

Chances were very good that your parents made a ton of money AND didnt really care about you, so they bought you stupid clothes to make you happy. Sorry. It just seemed like when I was in school, the only kids who wore these Vuarnet shirts (and many probably dont even know this is a SUNGLASSES company) were the spoiled rich kids. And Jay Ponticelli. If you had more than three of these shirts, it directly followed that you golfed at the age of 11, AND you spent most of your summer in Hyannis....

These guys were a pretty interesting store
Remember Benetton? They were pretty progressive as far as clothing stores go, and they were WAY ahead of their time! They were the first modern-liberal-"global awareness"-anti racism clothing store.....now the world is full of stores like this. Benetton really brought these issues to the forefront....even in the late 80's when it WASNT trendy to be global, green, and politically conscious. They ran some pretty controversial ads--one of them was the topless torso of a black woman breastfeeding a white baby (and you could see nudity), and another image they used to have on their bags was that of the Buddhist monks who set themselves on fire to protest the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Oh, and Benetton sold clothes too.

And now, a random Goldsmithish list of crap I remember from when I used to be cool.

GOTCHA clothing (had that whole paintball gun thing going)

TANK TOP FLANNELS usually with hoods too. Popularized by Joey on "Blossom." Whoaa!!

HYPERCOLOR turns colors when you sweat. Mine would be the brightest freakin' red ever.

UNIONBAY

COTLER

PANAMA JACK who was another sunglass company who sold shirts

COED NAKED frisbee, golf, football, cheering, underwater basket weaving, edible luggage making, etc.....

BIG JOHNSON who tried to ride the Coed Naked wave. They were silly

GITANO

GUESS

ESPRIT

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS which is something I put on because, during Operation Desert Shield (and then STORM), these sweatshirts really were something like a fashion statement. My mom got me one off the Home Shopping Network