Fashion Trends that Never Should Have Happened

Because I'm cool like this, I start many of my classes with a Stand-and-Deliver question of the day.  What's the last thing that you Googled?  Describe what you would want for your last supper.  What's the song most likely to lodge itself in your head?  Name one book that everyone should read.

Technically, it's a more engaging form of roll-call.  Plus, it provides students with frequent opportunities to speak in front of an audience in an informal and ungraded fashion.  (Public speaking premise number one: repeated exposure yields improvement.)

A recent prompt asked students to identify one past or present fashion trend that never should have happened.  The answers were fabulous: jean shorts (jorts) for men, gauchos, shoulder pads, puffy eighties bangs that curled both under and backward, the rat tail, extreme bell bottoms, leggings-as-pants, Ugg boots, black choker necklaces, the hairstyle where two small strands were pulled down as bangs to flank either side of your face, and -- of course -- the mullet.

Ah, the mullet.  It's wrong on so many levels, but I have a confession.  At one point in time, both of my older girls flirted with the mullet.  They hit a stage where the hair in the back grew more quickly and fully than the hair in the front, and the result was an adorable child who just happens to have a mullet because their mother (me) could not quite bear the thought of a first haircut.

My youngest just might be nearing this point.  I'm not ready to approach her with scissors because she has these amazing curls, and how can I bring myself to sever those precious wispy strands when she's still so small?

Until I'm ready, all I have to say is this:


Party in the back.

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11 comments

  1. TheMomChefMarch 14, 2012

    Oh geez. I forgot about the rat tail. I had one if you can believe that. Wow. I didn't cute Dudette's hair for a long time for the same reason. I love the curls. Why do they have to go away. :(

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  2. My little girl has those curls too.  One day she cut her hair FOR me...(ah yes, the elusive getting into scissors when no one's looking...) and I had to count to.....oh, let's say 187 before I could collect myself and say anything without freaking.

    You know what I LIKED that I think they should bring back?  Snap on bracelets.  You remember snap on bracelets?  Pogs, too.  That was a fun game.

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  3. My 11 month old daughter has a similar style...she lost the baby hair from the top of her head, but not at the bottom.  She also has that same purple sleeper. :)

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  4. MommywithselectivememoryMarch 14, 2012

    I think all girls flirt with the mullet... It's a rite of passage!! :-)

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  5. Michelle ThuldaninMarch 14, 2012

    Oh no, she doesn't have a mullet!! Her hair is so beautiful!

    (and the distinct lack of feathering on top makes it mullet-proof)

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  6. Aw, thanks, Michelle.  I had forgotten about the feathering... you're right!  Without that on top, a mullet simply is not complete.

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  7. I'm a huge fan of this sleeper.

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  8. Absolutely, I remember snap on bracelets.

    Yikes... that scissor/personal-hair-cutting story is something else!

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  9. Funny you should post this ... last week when my 16 month old daughter was sitting in her highchair, I beckoned my husband over and whispered,"I think Vivi has a mullet!!"  We both examined her as she sat quietly eating, unaware of our inspection.  The consensus was that yes, she does have a mullet (looks very similar to your daughter above), but no, I am not willing to snip those gorgeous, soft, sweet-smelling, perfect-in-every-way, long-awaited curls.  This is the one and only time in life when a mullet looks absolutely precious!

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  10. I was a victim of the huge shoulder pads. And I just remembered that my daughter cut her Dora doll's hair into a mullet. I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry.

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