Trend Watch--Culottes. Are you Serious?

**Please don't get the wrong idea here. I make fun of some trends but fully acknowledge that I pick up on some heinous ones as well.  Also, I admit my fashion mistakes, i.e. the year that I absolutely hated my body and convinced myself that wearing something identical to this every day (with a regular top or t-shirt, of course) was, um, attractive...or something.)**

The word bothers me.  The sound of it rolling off someone's tongue makes me shudder.  Face it, ugly fashions have ugly names, and like "romper," "culotte" makes me want to barf.

Besides just being heinous, culottes bring to mind many things that I don't want to associate with my wardrobe.  Mumsy, matronly, and "I have given up."  (See link to swimsuit-skirt above.  Yes. "I. Have. Given. Up." )  I am guilty of truly frightening non-style days.  I will admit it. I will make fun of it.  But I will also gripe about the trends that make me wonder, "Is that the designer's idea of a joke, to see how far we'll go?"

I guess it's true what they say: fashions keep re-appearing; save your clothes for your kids because they will be in style again someday.

(Photo found on thezaz.nationallampoon.com by searching "tight rolled jeans")

The photo on the left is the winner loser.  Eek.

Other trends from my childhood/junior high years have been showing up recently.

I wanted to cry when tapered jeans (cleverly marketed as "skinny jeans") started to reappear on shelves.  And...high-waisted pants?  Come on, I know we are all sick of seeing 13-year-old's underwear, but mom pants?  Meh.  I finally embraced the "skinny jeans" look because I wanted to try the whole "jeans-with boots" thing, but $108 later, I own a pair of jeans that have never been worn.  Not once.  Yay, me. At least I spent less than I normally would on jeans.  Still.

When rompers made a reappearance (a word I can only associate with drool, sticky apple juice, and strollers) I thought, "Okay, this is one of those runway things that no one will actually wear in public."   And even though the silly adult onesies are showing up on all kinds of mainstream shopping sites, I have yet to actually see someone wearing one in public in a fashionable way.  (Wearing a "lounge" romper after the gym does not, in my book, count as a "fashionable way."  Especially taken into account the Crocs and the backwards baseball cap.)  Anthropologie came out with a few one-piece outfits, and the long-pants version from last year was least offensive of them all: I called it a "cheat-suit" more than a romper; the top and bottom were not the same color, at least, and I saw at least one person pull it off gracefully.
However, I still don't like the things. And on my now-defunct old Wordpress blog, I posted a little whine about this.  Because, I mean, the court jester?  Not my fashion idol.  In that little post, I actually said..."What's next? Culottes?"

And...since I don't really follow runway fashion(I just get lost), I had no idea, but I was 100% correct.



















(Gladiator sandals and their brethren are starting to make me angry, as well. We don't all want our damned ankles covered all the time.)

Some of these things are okay, but come on, seriously? I find it hard to be attracted to any piece of clothing that brings to mind moms dropping off the kids (in the 80s, yeah) and girls who thought skirts were for sluts (again, in the 80s).  Also, I am not sure  how these things are figure-flattering. Maybe this just means I am too old (um, at 30?) to be fashionable, to be trendy.  If I can remember trends from before, am I too old to talk about them, look at them, dissect them, now?  Or maybe I am simply jealous that I "can't pull it off" (mainly because I would feel ridiculous if I tried.)


Rompers, culottes, Ked-style shoes with the laces removed, those horrible canvas shoes with elastic on each side of the "tongue"...do you own them? Wear them? Love them? Hate them?  I want to know.  What do  you currently love?  Hate?  Need immediately?