Gen Z knows what Gen X should wear, and Millennials don’t have a clue. But I have it in my closet…

I saw a story in the New York Times about generational clothing angst. Apparently Gen Z wants to tell all the other Gens what’s out: ankle boots, cross-body bags, anything tucked into anything, skinny jeans (influencers are “personally offended” by them). And of course they know what’s in: wide-leg trousers (obvs), visible ankle socks and even — conclusive proof that those who don’t learn the lessons of past clothing tragedies are doomed to repeat them— legwarmers in public. (And feathers, but I just can’t…)

Only here’s the thing. I have had EVERY ONE of these things in my closet. Many are still there. Even the odd feather or two. It made me wonder where each generation has gone so sartorially wrong. Consider:

1940s.

My mother was Gen WWII (born 1922 – 1927). She told me wartime rationing wasn’t so bad except for clothing, which she said was like losing a 10-year bet. And you weren’t even allowed to complain, because “there’s a war going on.” So it was dresses with puff sleeves, tight waists, and hats that made you want to enlist because even a uniform was more flattering.

1950s

I wonder if my mother changed her opinion of 1940s fashion once she realized she would spend the next decade, the 1950s, wearing maternity dresses made by Omar the Tentmaker out of 75 yards of black polyester with a contrasting bow at the neck.

Sadly neither she nor her growing number of daughters (eventually there were eight of us) escaped the fifties unscathed. She kept two stacks of little hats, wool berets for winter and woven straw for summer. The wool hats were scratchy, but that was nothing compared to straw hats whose little elastic chin bands served as garottes when your brother sat behind you and pulled your hat back from your head before releasing it. And even that couldn’t begin to compare to the torture that lived in a drawer of the coat closet. It was full of little white gloves, which somehow never quite matched and often were both for the same hand so you had to yank one on backwards. Then you had to spend the upcoming hours incarcerated in hat, dress, and patent leather shoes WITHOUT GETTING YOUR WHITE GLOVES DIRTY. White gloves are one of those forgotten life skills women my age had to master, along with high heels and not burping or farting in public.

1960’s 

During next decade, the sixties, I and my fellow Gen Boomers (born 1946 – 1964) grew up. Omar’s clients got polyester maternity pants with stretch tummy panels. My mother (who was only halfway through the roughly 7.5 years of her life she spent pregnant with her ten kids) wistfully showed me pictures of an anorexic model named Twiggy wearing baby doll dresses that didn’t seem much different from what my mother pulled onto the baby sister du jour.

But I was luckier. Like the flower children up in San Francisco, I got tie-dyed clothes and love beads, pegged (skinny) jeans, and flowers in my hair. At least, that was the clothing I tried to sneak into as soon as that last bell rang at Our Lady of Plaid and I could stuff my uniform into my backpack.

1970s

Our teachers told us girls that we should be doctors, astronauts, construction workers: anything but mothers. Omar opened a chain of Quiche Shops along the coast.

I slit my pegged jeans to the knees and lined them with neon bandannas to make bell bottoms. These I covered with so many appliques and embroidered patches there was very little denim left. But there was worse to come. I had dresses so short I had to practice bending from the knees. These were accessorized with a floppy newsboy hat, a boyfriend with facial hair who played (bad) guitar, and a VW Beetle so ancient it lacked a gas gauge and could only go uphill in reverse, which made those trips to visit the hippies in San Francisco doubly exciting. But none of that mattered because it had a convertible top, the only de rigueur necessity for a California teen. 

But even I had to admit, looking around at seventies fashions, that things were dire. My facially-hirsute boyfriend took to wearing shiny shirts with massive collars. My friends’ fathers humiliated themselves by appearing in plaid shorts or even worse, polyester leisure suits. My best friend only wore black, with safety pins piercing every part of her face from cheeks to lips to eyebrows. Her boyfriend had so many safety pin piercings with little chains connecting them that he jingled whenever he moved. He wore a leather motorcycle jacket with the logo across the back from Our Lady of Sorrows, the Catholic high school across town — a red heart with swords through it. But this admittedly sexy look was ruined as soon as he took off his motorcycle helmet to reveal: the mullet.

Nothing could have prepared us for the ultimate fashion disaster that was the mullet. Oh sure, rocker Joan Jett pulled it off. And of course, Paul McCartney could have worn any hairstyle. But the only being on the planet who could make it all look beautiful was David Bowie. And really — once you’ve seen his Ziggy Stardust, who would even try?

1980s

My younger Gen X siblings (born 1965 – 1980) made fun of our Boomer work ethic. But my fellow Boomers and I put on our power suits with shoulder pads wide enough to have their own zip codes, permed up our big hair, and donned our enormous-framed serious eyeglasses. We had careers instead of jobs because we were supposed to Have It All. After work, we went to the gym wearing neon spandex with matching headbands and (I’m very sorry to say) leg warmers. Then we put on our little black dresses with the boxy shoulder-padded jackets, went clubbing, and made regrettable sexual decisions, often involving mullets and people who were not David Bowie.

Then the biological clock’s alarm sounded. Suddenly, our professional jobs, apartments, cars, and size 7 wardrobes were meaningless. The only status symbol that counted was stretch marks. Omar started a catalog of maternity tents for professional women (made out of 75 yards of black polyester with contrasting neckties and boxy jackets). Thanks to the glow of pregnancy, people assured me that even though I looked like a Volkswagen in a black tent with a contrasting bow at the windshield, I had never looked better. 

1990s

 

The nineties are kind of a blur to me, so I’m not sure exactly how this happened. One minute I was a sophisticated, independent career woman who used four-letter words and alcoholic beverages in public. A moment later I spawned and all of a sudden my mother took up residence in my mouth.

Omar moved to the Valley and managed a couple of Airbnbs. But this time when I got pregnant, I didn’t miss him because pregnant bellies were now a fashion statement and lycra was my new best friend. Despite dark warnings from other moms that the leggings-and-big-shirt look was a slippery slope leading to elastic waist mom jeans, I embraced the comfort and tried not to think about the day when I’d have to give up the flannel shirts and get back into the suits.

My two older daughters were humiliated by my wardrobe deficiencies. I tried to tell them I was sporting the new, energy-conscious environmental-friendly look. [Translation: I gave up ironing two pregnancies ago, and I now only wore things with dirt on them. For evening wear, this ensemble was often accessorized with a splash of eau d’baby puke.] But they insisted it was an emergency and we had to go to the mall immediately.

I’m not sure where they developed their fashion sense. It seemed only yesterday the best you could say for their choice of outfits was they were politically correct—equal representation for all colors, patterns, and seasons at once. The only things missing were the empty whiskey bottles and the lampshade.

I admit I’m not a very good shopper, especially when it comes to my own clothing. When I was their age, I used to dread the moment my mother would drag me to Chez Mall Énorme.  “But I have clothes,” I’d wail, pointing to my jeans with the hand-embroidered patches and my crocheted vest.

“You’re not wearing patched jeans with holes in the knees to school,” my mother replied as she trapped me in a dressing room by walking out with my jeans while the saleslady with the cat glasses plied me with armfuls of tasteful polyester doubleknits.

But the shopping gene must skip generations, because my two older daughters loved to shop. Actually, this had its advantages, they assured me. I wouldn’t need to save for college for the oldest one, because she decided her career goal was a job at her favorite mall store. She already had all the qualifications: she wore a single-digit size and she could transform a basic $49.95 outfit into a $49.95 outfit with $150 of accessories faster than you can say “Visa or Mastercard”. For a store discount, she was even willing to be perky.

“Can I have these jeans?” Child#1 asked, pointing to a pair of jeans with patches and factory-installed holes in the knees.

And that’s where it happened. I opened my mouth, and out came my mother. “You’re not wearing patched jeans with holes in the knees to school.”

”Besides,” I added, “Kids today have it too easy. In my day, we didn’t have some worker in a third-world sweatshop to beat up our jeans; we had to wear them out ourselves.”

Just then Child#2 came out wearing a crocheted vest and a tie-dyed gauze skirt. All she needed was the lava lamp and the “Woodstock or Bust” sign.

I turned to the saleslady with the retro cat glasses. “How do you feel about polyester doubleknits?”

But I miss the nineties, I really do. Sure my Gen Z siblings wandered about in bits of lingerie they called slip dresses, thongs that showed over the tops of their low rise baggy jeans with the two-inch zippers, and rainbow-tinted sunglasses that cost more than the gross national product of a small country. But I remember it as a decade where I got to slouch around in comfortable clothing, work in high-tech companies where we had fancy coffees available in the break rooms 24/7,  and drop the f-bomb in mobile phone calls with the other executives. We were the cool kids with our stock options and retirement accounts.

2000s

Somehow we made it through Y2K without world technology grinding to a halt. Next thing I knew, I was hiring Millenials (born 1981 – 1996) and Gen Z (born 1997 – 2012) was explaining how to work the TV and get the 12:00 to stop blinking on the microwave. They were smarter and cooler than I could ever be.

So I quit. I said goodbye to a frightening number of navy and black work suits and their matching shoes, moved to England, and had an epiphany.

It did not matter what any of the Gens were wearing that year, because if I was in the city, nobody who knew me would see me, so it didn’t matter what I was wearing. And if I was in the country, nobody who knew me cared what I was wearing so it didn’t matter there either.

So I can honestly tell the New York Times that while I’ve already got every piece of their recommended 2024 style in my closet from the last time one of the Gens recommended it, this year I’ll be wearing one of the Gen thirteenth century salwar kameez outfits I pick up in India every year. Minus the feathers.