Tuesday, July 12, 2011

I Covet Your Pants


  To the overtly effeminate, dapper young Asian man wearing skin tight yellow and black acid wash jeans on the N train last night, I only have one thing to say to you. Where can I buy a freakin’ pair? I want them…nay, I need them. I can understand why you may have thought I was staring at your not so discreet bulge—which was made even more painfully apparent by the tightness of the sausage casing over your legs—especially as it was at my eye level. The way you flaunted it, putting your hand on your hips and shifting side to side, was like watching a psychiatrist’s gold watch swinging back and forth, inducing a momentary state of hypnosis.

But what I was really hypnotized by was your pants. A rare, bright gem amid a pile of pale subway riders. Those blackboard-chalk-yellow pants swirling around in front of me got me spinning until suddenly I found myself back in 7th grade, outside of the window at Jean Country BEGGING my mother for a pair of acid wash jeans. They had every color imaginable hanging up on a wall—hot colors on black and bright pastel colors on white. I wanted them as badly as I secretly wanted to keep playing with Barbies and Jem and the Holograms, despite the fact that it was no longer cool to do so in middle school.

I’m sure it wasn’t the pants my mother objected to, but we didn’t have very much money, so I missed out on a lot of the “hip” styles of the times. Mind you, these were fashion’s worst ever times—the 80s. At the end of this decade, when we awoke in a horrifying haze of big hair and shoulder pads, we swore that we’d NEVER go back. But one only need to trot into Brooklyn to see how the Hipsters have brought the most questionable of the 80s trends back into fashion. Thus the reason, I am sure, that you yourself were wearing those glorious pants.

So, when all of my predominately Italian American junior high school classmates were wearing IOU sweatshirts and gold chains – I had on the Sears wannabe special. If I had been a boy, I would have begged for Z.Cavaricci pants as well, surely to no avail, and drench myself in Drakkar Noir. When Skids became the fad, my mom said they looked like pajama pants and refused to pay the outlandish price for a pair. Even if she had, those baggy checkered pants wouldn’t have fit me, even in size small. Because I was a 90 pound, gangly dork with braces, a spiked mullet and bad taste. And later when even my father had those MC Hammer pants, I was not able to get a pair.

Despite the fact that I was convinced I was stylish, I once overheard a friend saying I needed help in the fashion department. I guess my ruffled skirt with spandex half leggings and tie dye shirt with suspenders didn’t impress. But I did have some cool things. For example, I saved up for ages to get an acid wash jean jacket (from Sears), and made it cool by sewing a huge, airbrushed Jon Bon Jovi face patch onto the back. I still have it. Maybe I should throw it on next time I go into Williamsburg. And for my college friends who claimed I was stuck in the 80s in 1994, the reason is that once I could afford the clothes, I didn’t want to give them up so fast!


AmyMC, circa 1987
And now I bet you are wondering, pants boy, did I ever get the acid wash jeans that I wanted so badly and that I wish with all of my being I still saved, despite the fact that I probably couldn't get one leg into them now? The answer my friend, is in this photo- which is worth a thousand words.

12 comments:

  1. Now I will go through all my old boxes of photos and find pics of you in all the things you wanted but say you didn't get!!! I am sure you had Jams, now I have to prove it! :)

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  2. HAHA! Yes, I did have Jams. But you could get them in Caldor :-)

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  3. The 80's. What a fascinating decade. The music...the drugs...Alf. Alf had great style. My style in the 80's was a combination of horrible and dreadful. Like my sister mentioned, we didn't get the flyest gear. I wore ill fitting jeans with oversized shirts. I had spiked hair, feathered sides, and a rat tail. Yes, a rat tail. Fortunately, I was young enough during the 80s that it was ok. All kids my age had awkward and awful styles. Now, despite my worst dressed decade, I did manage to own some pretty sweet items in my collection. Here were the highlights:
    - Hypercolor shirt that changed color upon contact with heat. (these were later recalled for causing cancer)
    - A Bart Simpson shirt that said 'Eat My Shorts'
    - A Howard the Duck shirt
    - A jean jacket that had an Iron Maiden iron on the back of it
    - A Hulkamania Tank Top
    - A half cut shirt that exposed my stomach
    - Umbro Soccer shorts
    - Camoflage Army pants

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  4. Thank god I was born at the tail end of this monstrosity. Although I do remember pining for Old Navy's tech vest, that all the girls in middle school had except for me. My mom bought me the cheaper Modell's version, which didn't cut it, until I finally was able to save up and buy my own damn tech vest. Which at that point, were officially un-cool.

    It didn't stop at the 80s with you Eric. If I can recall correctly, you were also the very willing victim of your punk rock phase, and then your raver boy phase. And now your hipster phase. What's next? When will it end?

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  5. Amy!!! Tens raó: una foto val més que mil paraules. Increïble! Per fi he vist una foto teva d'adolescent. Recordes que sempre deies que no m'ho creuria??? Doncs és veritat!

    Bon text, guapa! Petons

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  6. OK, first of all, everyone... the 80s was by no means the worst decade ever for fashion. I realize some of you are too young to have photos of yourselves in polyester-blend brick-red corduroy pants with a flower motif topped by a smock-like blue-and-white checked blous with a mock-tuxedo white bib-like thing in the middle and puffy shoulders, but that, my friends, was being a kid in the 70s. Don't make me upload a guest photo to prove it.

    In the 80s I had no excuse as I was a fully formed teen and purposely had a curly mullet and white jeans that were pegged at the bottom which I wore with a puffy white blouse and a purple formless sweater vest over. Oh yeah, and purple knee-highs and white pumps. And purple eyeshadow. And Lee Press-On Nails.

    Nothing in the 80s suited me -- the preppy look (I looked like a girl in drag), the tuxedo shirt (thank god my mom wouldn't let me have one), the Little House on the Prairie-style gingham dress with the ruffle around the collar and the puffy sleeves (puffy was big then), the plastic earrings (which young Spanish men are wearing now... nice).

    The only thing that suited me in the 80s was the music, and don't nobody better not talk bad about no Duran Duran or Kajagoogoo or Stray Cats or Adam and the Ants! Anyone wearing 80s styles now clearly didn't live through it the first time.

    A few months ago in London all the lads looked like Morrissey or like they were out of Dexy's Midnight Runners' "Come On, Eileen" video. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I believe you kids have a little friend called Google that helps you with these things.

    And yeah, I had an acid wash denim jacket AND jeans and I wore them together... the acid wash Texas Tuxedo!!! Rock on!

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  7. @Jana Lia: Please do upload that photo! I know all about the cords baby, I was born in mid 70s and got to don some of those fabu styles as well!

    Pegged jeans were the best! I used to use a rubberband to get them extra tight at the bottom. This is recorded in my senior year high school yearbook (in 1994) for all the world to see, and earned me much ridicule from my college roomates because it was proof that I was stuck in the 80s.

    And you are right, ain't nobody better say anything bad about 80s music. I don't know if it still exists, but there was a club in NYC called the Culture Club where you could rock out to all your 80s favs and nobody would try to stop ya! I could do a robot there and it would be the norm!

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  8. @Amy M.C.: NOW you tell me about the Culture Club! And we spent all that time in the Eastern Bloc!

    BTW, I had a pair of jeans that had faint white pinstripes, and the legs were so pegged at the bottom that there were ankle zippers because without those you couldn't get them over your foot (i.e., fashionable, practical, and thank god jeggings hadn't been invented yet -- course, I did have some nice stirrup pants).

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  9. OK - seems all of you had, or wanted to have, style in the 80s. Not me. So in the eighties I went from 6 years old to 16. I think most of that time I just wore whatever my mother bought for me. I just didn't care, so she is 100% responsible of whatever I was wearing at that time. I just hated going shopping.

    And now I'm 36 and that last thing has not changed a little bit. Please, why don't we use uniforms at work????

    Fortunately, we didn't have digital cameras in those years. And only Amy scans photos from the 80s!!!

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  10. Oh I'm sorry Michelle, is it a bad thing that I stay relevant in the ever changing world of fashion fads and trends? You're right, I've gone through more phases than the moon, but it's all about timing. Yes I was a punk helping tear down the Berlin Wall, yes I was a raver in the bowels of nyc underground night life, yes I was an ambiguous alt rock kid in Brooklyn before it was ruined by privileged upper east siders. But, I knew when to bail. That's the key. Bail before the trend hits the corny preppy kids who ruin it. That, and keeping your ear to the street to see what the next thing will be. I'm anticipating a mix of 1930's Budapest and Biblical garb.

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  11. Now now kids. I'm sure there's a mediator blog out there where you can work our your pent up frustrations. In the meantime, ECOL, I would personally like to see caveman come back into play. (sometimes on the subway, i think it already has). So, start that up, would ya? Anything is possible, after all the mullet was alive and well when I left Barcelona only two years ago.

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  12. Amy, I'm pretty sure the mullet will always be here. It's not in fashion anymore, but I do still see some doozies.. My fave so far has been the guy with the half-inch-long hair all over his head, except at the back, where it was three feet of dreads. Nice.

    But why, why, why, pretty please, why don't these boys just pull their pants up? That's been going on FAR too long. At least the 80s trends coming back could do away with that. These guys look like idiots trying to run up stairs!

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