Being a 90’s Girl

So I may be a bit nostalgic of late, I was recently at a 90’s reunion of a nightclub I basically lived in from 1999-2001 and its got me thinking of the golden era where boy bands, Soother necklaces and the original Adidas pull-aways ruled.

The Shift

Okay so when your mam eventually let you go to your first disco, you psyched yourself up for the big night and you prayed to all your Christian Slater posters that you may at long last “get the shift”. You were nervous, but ready. You can not be the last one in the group not to have shifted anyone, no way! You have gotten tips from the 2 experienced girls in the group, there was nothing more to do then just wait. Bopping along to Hanson’s ‘mmmbop’ in your baby doll dress with matching body suit underneath, it comes on…the slow set. As you hear the first notes of Celine Dion’s ‘Think Twice’ your heart starts to beat faster, everyone disperses from the dance floor except the couples. You move to the side of the room with your friends. Then one of the girls squeals and says “Oh my God Tom Jones *name changed for anonymity* is coming over to you!!”  while amazingly at the same time does her best ventriloquist impression, like her lips don’t move from a flat crazed looking smile! “No he’s not!” you declare doing your best impression of modesty, then a tap on the shoulder.

“Will you shift my friend?” Tom the big ride says, as he points over at a group of 3 stringy sweaty boys all in matching Fila jumpers, pushing each other and sniggering. Then they push him out of the huddle, hes not bad you think, you nod, he walks over not even a greeting passes when ye get stuck in. Its absolutely horrific and not at all what it looks like when you see Angel and Shane at it in Home and Away, but you go with it until the songs ends. Next song up is Weezer’s Buddy Holly, you move away from each other faster then a wig in a hurricane and that’s that. You did it, you had your first shift and it was disgusting (but if anyone asks it was Oh My God Ah-ma-zing!).

The Fashion & Style

Now I will probably be on my own here but I loved the clothes from the 90’s (late 90’s, early 1990’s included a lot of sky pants and polo jumpers thanks to Mam). Here are some of the beauts from the era…how many can you tick off?

90s girl clothes, crop tops, flares                       britney topplatform shoes 1990s

 

beyonce, handkerchief top                 platform runner                    susst jeans

1990s flares                          1990s clothes                                            tarten flares

 

Cast your eyes on these beauties!! Huge flares from Nope or Susst were CLASS. Platform shoes in all variations from runners to shoes were so cool. Nike Airs…well what can I say I was never lucky enough to own a pair until I could buy my own, but I admired them from afar. Knitted tops with stripes and monkeys. Crop tops, especially hanker chief tops were massive with the huge flares. Tartan Flares worn with trainers were epic.

All of the above was bought mostly on our twice yearly shopping trips to Dublin. We all piled on the train (when you could afford to go on the train without having to re-mortgage your house), headed to in no particular order, “No Name”, “Hero”, “Angel”, “Morgan”, “Tokyo”, “Hairy Legs”, “Miss Selfridge” to name but a few. Midriffs were the thing of the 90s whatever you wore, trousers or skirts you would wear them with crop tops, the waists were very low, no high waist jeans in those days! Only hipster style trousers, that sat right on your hip bone. Nice.

Denim was huge, wearing denim on/with or along denim Ala B*witched, that was the height of fashion. Even now, there are 30 something girls that feel uncomfortable with the whole double denim revival. It doesn’t sit right with us.

The bigger the flares the cooler the person, seeing 16 year old girls tripping over their flares when there was a bit of a breeze was a normal occurrence in late 1990’s Ireland.

I would even go so far as to say we were playing our part at keeping the streets clean, lets face it, wearing those flares in any type of damp weather resulted in wet knees. The boot cut was another popular type of cut. But one thing that was not cool in any way, was having jeans that were too tight at the ankle, your jeans HAD to go over whatever footwear you had on. So basically if 1999 me saw 2017 me in skinny jeans, she would be mortified. Saying that if 2017 me had 1999 me’s figure I would tie her down and make her put on the skinny jeans!!

Platform runners were very popular in the mid to late 90s, the Spice Girls were responsible for this trend. The platform shoe was a God send to girls like me who were under 5″ 3. They were the AV8s of 2017. They also complimented the flared hipsters as you didn’t clean as much of the streets that way. The pull away tracksuit bottoms are synonymous of the 90s. I had a pair, but mine had 2 stripes instead of 3. Nope had tracksuit bottoms that were in different colours with a thick stripe down the leg, they were amazing as they were the first tracksuit bottom with a flare!

I remember when I was 15 babysitting for the guts of 12 hours for 25 Irish Pounds and being able to buy a pair of royal blue and white tracksuit bottoms!

We didn’t have straighteners, fake tan or contouring for a night out.

We had Rimmel Heather Shimmer and a Pan Stick. We had one eye shadow that was usually really dark (an all over dark smokey eye was very popular) and a swipe of a brown lipstick and we were good to go!

Shorter hairstyles were most popular back in the day. Long sleek locks were a no no. Zig zag partings, thick highlights and choppy layers were just gorgeous! As I mentioned GHDs were marely a twinkle in the manufacturer’s eyes. If you had long hair, and iron and your best friend was your stylist.

90s hairstyles  

The Music

So we had a mixed bag of music in the 90s. Early 90s you had dance, a lot of it. The Shamen, Ultra Nate, Dr. Alban, 2 Unlimited the list goes on. I have attached a link for those who fancy listening to a little dance here.

Boy bands were massive, Boyzone, Take That, Westlife, NSync, Backstreet Boys, East 17, early 90s saw New Kids on the Block, 5ive, Blue, Hanson, Boyz to Men and All for One are just a few of the groups I can remember. I wasn’t into boy bands back then, but try and stop me getting to the dance floor when the 5ive Mega mix comes on and I will hurt you!!

Brit pop and Indie ruled the charts in the 90s. In the biggest question of the 90s I would have to say Blur all the way! I will leave a link here if you haven’t a clue of what I am talking about!

I was obsessed with Damon Albarn. Yum.

Oasis were the idols of every teenage boy who wasn’t into Metallica and Nirvana. After the Spice Girls broke the mold more girl bands formed, All Saints, Sugababes, Atomic Kitten, Eternal, B*Witched, En Vogue, Destiny’s Child and TLC. Personally I loved All Saints edginess and of course the fact they wore tight vest tops with massive combats were a plus.

I loved dance from the late 90s, basically anything that went on a Cream or Ministry of Sound Album.

Top of the Pops on a Thursday night, the Top 30 with Larry Gogan and the Beat box with Dave Fanning was how we got to hear these songs. Those of us who were lucky enough to have MTV watched Hitlist UK. SM:TV and CD:UK

                                                                                                                                                                       

 

TV and Movies

We didn’t have smart phones, WIFI, Netflix or YouTube in the 90s. We didn’t even have DVDs! When we wanted to see a new movie at home we went to the new release section in the Video Shop (yes, we had to physically go to a shop and rent films* they are officially called films btw*) we rented it, if it was in… Went home to enjoy, Scream, Sleepers or The Craft and guess what…it may needed to be re-wound!

We had to sit and wait while the WHOLE ENTIRE film re-winded to the start…then we had to forward on the trailers and piracy warning which was mad scary! I have linked it here…be warned its mad Ted.

In the 90s we had lots of disaster blockbusters like, Titanic, Armageddon, Independence Day , Dante’s Peak, River Wild, Daylight. Then there was the Brad Pitt movies, Sleepers, Meet Joe Black, Seven, Fight Club, Interview with a Vampire, Legends of the Fall, 12 Monkeys, Devils Own, A River Runs Through It and True Romance. Listen, its Brad of course I have to mention him!

Of course the most popular movies of this era was the teen horror sequel… The most popular and the first was Scream. The excitement when a new Scream was released in the cinema! Then there was I know what you did Last Summer, this lost its appeal after the second one, I Still Know what You did Last Summer… Who can forget the Blair Witch Project this movie caused people to hyperventilate before they even started watching it! FYI its shite! Final Destination was a clever movie, you literally watched everything you did after leaving the cinema and in those days I had to walk home, with no mobile…once again after the second one it ran its course. The early 90s produced Freddie Kruger movies. More gore than scare but I loved them when I was about 12 or 13 years old! I would not watch them now if you paid me!

TV in the 90s was religious.

The first and most obvious one was Friends. In our day we got to watch weekly brand new Friends, we had to wait for 7 days to find out what was going to happen after Ross said Rachel’s name, would Joey ever forgive Chandler for kissing Kathy…a whole 7 days! No previews, no spoilers no watch before anyone else on a dodgy US website. We had one TV in our house and my parents were obsessed with the soaps and hourly updates of the news so I rarely got to watch TV after 6pm. So because of this I never kept up to date with Dawson and Joey, Buffy and Angel, Beverly Hills 90210, Party of Five, My So Called Life but after spending 10 minutes with the girls at small break you were caught up!

Sister Sister, Keenan and Kell, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air these shows were the embodiement of my teenage years! My hands down favourite was Only Fools and Horses. Some of my guilty pleasures from the early 90s were Fr. Dowling Mysteries and Minder!

Here’s a little trip down memory lane…

tv shows from the 90s            

 

Weird 90s Things

Like every generation there were fads and trends that we had to have, no more so than then in the 90s. Tamagotchis were one of the most weirdest crazes. We spent months of our young lives trying to keep a digital pet alive, while their real-life pets were ignored…I would love to know how many of these little things were confiscated by teachers during these years! Apparently they are making a comeback…Tamagotchi 2017

There were those plastic soothers that I can only imagine were a throwback from the early 90s rave scene…but for 12 year old girls they were THE thing to display on a rope around your neck…the brighter the better. Mood rings were another huge fad, again I would believe this came from the My Girl movies…

Everyone sold them, yes they made your finger go green and sometimes infect your skin but when it went black you had something tangible to show your parents how depressed they were actually making you…no drama like!

Plastic chokers would be worn all the time, with tracksuits or dresses, the more you layered on the cooler you were. Butterfly clips all over your head were class, if you could get someone to put in corn rolls along with them, you were the actual image of a 1990s teenager! Basically anything with a smiley face or ying yang symbol worn somewhere on your body was accepted. Both boys and girls would EVER wear a collar down, it must have been worn up and layered with further collars, all worn up. If you wore a hoodie, you pulled the collar underneath it up, that was very cool. Anything from the body shop  drenched all over your skin was a must, especially White Musk and their fruity lip balms. Glints and hint of a tint and sun in were our first foray with hair colouring.

You would be dark brown and fancy going blonde, hey presto your now half ginger/orange and you run to your friends house for reassurance and wondering what the hell you were going to do??!!

 

things from the 90s    

 

 

makeup 1990sheather shimmer                                

So that’s what the 90s meant to me! From fashion to TV, Films to Boys and everything in between! There is no doubt I’m missing some major 90s moments or things, let me know what you remember from back in the day!! Also I am still in denial it was 20 years ago!!

 

 

 

 

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