Acid Flashback

Fashion is a strange thing, and over the years some bizarre--and terrible--styles have been popular, from harem pants to leg warmers. Sometimes the reason why a horrible style catches on is obvious--with leg warmers in the early 1980s, surely the movie Fame was to blame?--and you can only hope its popularity fades quickly. But other times an offensive fashion trend seems to arrive for no reason and then sticks around for way too long, and when it's finally out you're all, Whew, glad that's over, that was some FUGLY stuff! You know, like bubble skirts. But the worst fashion occurrence is when a horrible, unflattering trend that you had to suffer through once already, comes BACK IN STYLE, making you momentarily wish you lived in Afghanistan where all you'd ever see are burkas.

What I'm talking about, people, is ACID-WASH JEANS. These were slutty the first time around, and not good-slutty like platform heels, but bad-slutty like I'm-sixteen-and-a-Warrant-groupie.

Yours for just $39 at Macys.com!

I first noticed the acid-wash comeback last spring--a little bit in stores but mostly in paparazzi photos of various young startlets wearing horrendous splotchy, ripped, tight jeans. Lindsey Lohan, Kim Kardashian, Fergie--classy gals like that. I ignored it, sure the utter heinousness of it all would render it just a blip on the fashion meter. But now the Fall ad campaigns are out, and acid-wash is everywhere. The ads I've seen seem to be positioning them as edgy and grungy. One Old Navy ad has models wearing skinny acid-wash jeans with long, belted plaid shirts. It's mid-80s Valley Girl meets early 90s Seattle Grunge Chick. My brain wanted to explode after seeing that one.

Most fashion trends come back in style at some point--there was even a scary fluorescent resurgence a couple of years ago--and all you can hope for is that the awful ones are short-lived. So far, I haven't seen any of the teens in my town wearing acid-wash. Maybe they're smarter than that. If not, I have some photos of myself circa 1987 that should scare them straight.