Leggings are the devil's fashion item
When I was about 7 or 8, there was a show on television called "Punky Brewster" about a chipper wee orphan living with an old man who was the totally inept police chief in all the police academy movies. I don't remember them being related on the show, so in retrospect, it was probably a bit of a skeevy premise. Anyway, our title charachter was forever wearing multicolored leggings and short skirts layered together. When done by a professional 80s stylist, this comes out looking fabulous to an 8 year old. When said 8 year old generally is happy to throw on whatever her mother puts out, and is not particularly involved in the clothes shopping, leggings are an unknown creature. So I tried to emulate the look by piling on a T-shirt, a sundress over that, 2 belts around the middle, and 2 pairs of sweatpants on underneath - one with only one leg on, trying to stuff the other one in around the waist to achieve the 2 different colored stocking look. My mother nearly pissed herself laughing. Was too embarrassed to admit what I was trying to emulate and removed all the excess layers. Took years before I discovered what ACTUAL leggins were and why perhaps sweatpants had not achieved that same skin-tight effect. More bonus points to Mum for not telling me 5 years later when I was rabidly wearing leggings and long shirts together to middle school that I was far too fat to be doing that. No young love for me. I think even though the fashion magazines say the leggings are totally back this year, I'll be avoiding them just to be on the safe side (though I am about 50lb lighter than the last time I tried to wear them at age 12, so I guess that's something).
(pantherwest, Fri 25 Aug 2006, 2:06, Reply)