Never Retro 90's

For quite some time now, it has always been considered somewhat fashionable, in a weird faux-pas-yet-cool kinda way, to dress retro. Some of us used to wear suspenders zoot-suits to replicate the roaring 20's. Others like to wear chords and tie-dye for the 60's-70's. It's been increasingly popular to wear the bell bottoms of the 70's, the thin ties of the 50's, and the black rimmed glasses of the 80's. There have even been companies that have capitalized on the whole "retro" fashion (ie American Eagle, Ambercrombie and Finch, Gap, etc...) And while all of these styles are viewed with varying degrees of cool-ness, there is one era of style that I pray will never be visited again: the early 90's.

Only recently, when I decided to rent or watch such films as "Double Dragon" and "Iron Eagle 3" and watch such classic TV shows as MacGyver and Step by Step, did I realize how awful we looked in the 90's. I mean, people dressed ridiculously. Let me start with the hair.

Sure, it's been popular for folks to "fro" their hair so they look like OJ Simpson back when he wasn't a murderer by a football player. It's been cool for ladies to flip out the ends of their hair, to get that 50's TV mom look going. Hell, I've even seen the occasional bobbed hair and pompadours. But I hope I never see haircuts from the 90's make a comeback. These haircuts consist of, but aren't limited to, the dreaded RAT TAIL- popular with younger kids, this haircut involved a normal doo, but you had a small little tail of hair on the back of your head... I thank God that my parents forbid me to get one of those. Don't forget the ever popular MULLET- this debuted in the 80's but continued on to the 90's, being very popular with police officers, construction workers, and Mormons. The FLAT TOP- this was by far the craziest. I'm not talking about a normal military flat top, I mean the tall, bleached, Vanilla-Ice-style flat tops that you could land a small plane on. Absolutely offensive! What about the ladies' haircuts? Well, they had that really POOFY hair. Yeah, I don't know what it was called (because I'm a dude) but check out your slightly-older-cousin's yearbook and you will see what I'm talking about.

Okay, what about clothes? Well, the nineties had some pretty loud clothes. I blame alot of it on the 80's. The 1980's are regarded as some of the most ridiculous times in pop culture history, well at least that's what VH1 tells me. And alot of early 90's fashion bled over, but somehow managed to outdo the black and pink decade. Suit jackets with zippers? Who the hell zips up their sports coat to go into a meeting? Dress shirts without a collar?! You know what I'm talking about, those shirts that went halfway up your neck, had a weird side button, and made you look like a Vegas-playa. Shirts with crazy triangles on them... for some reason, people loved triangles and squiggly lines on silky shirts. Watch an episode of Rocko's modern life and you will see what I mean. What are those triangles up to? Why did everyone love them so much? Everyone had this weird texture in the 90's, lots of crazy dashes and such. And of course, there was also the grunge-rock flannel shirt. I used to get those suckers, tie them around my waist, and go to town like Eddie Vedder on Prozac. Pants consisted of the parachute variety, the tight jeans (for girls and guys both), and something called "stone washed jeans." Apparently, people used to wash their jeans with rocks instead of detergent, and it gave them this weird color in their jeans that looked like they had been Xeroxed and then worn. Yeah, we were nuts in the 90's.

And while there are even more ridiculous things to talk about from the 90's, I don't want to start sounding like one of those stupid VH1 shows that suck you in. I am just doing my civic duty to warn all you hip kids out there... no matter what society tells you is cool, never give in to 90's fashion. In fact, if American Eagle ever stops selling high-priced dirty clothes and starts selling stone-washed jean jackets and parachute pants, go and fire bomb the nearest store. Make sure you scream something like "This is for MacGyver and Patrick Duffey!!!"

Word.