Come as You Were: The Return of Grunge

Grunge fashion is back, doncha know?

Yeah, yeah, we've been hearing about the return of grunge for ages, but apparently, the fashion houses are ratcheting it up a notch these days. In yesterday's Style section, the New York Times featured an article about grunge fashion that really went deep into the way early 90s trends are finding their way into high fashion: "Subversion in myriad forms was being commodified on the catwalks....in recent months, the era of Nirvana, Starbucks and heroin chic has been exploited with a rarefied twist."

Ugh, don't you just hate pretentious fashion mumbo-jumbo?

So, despite the fact that actual grunge fashion was basically about wearing old flannel shirts you bought at the thrift store, patching (and re-patching) your ancient ripped jeans until they could be patched no more, and then finishing off the "look" with Doc Martens (usually the only new item in the whole ensemble), various high-end designers, such as Helmut Lang, Dries Van Noten, Jil Sander, 3.1 Phillip Lim, and Saint Laurent are co-opting grunge styles.

Designers have always looked to the past for inspiration. In the 90s, flared hippyish pants (stolen from the 70s) were in style, while more recently, fashion houses tried--and failed, thank god--to bring back 80s day-glo.

But with the resurgence of grunge era fashion, it's the first time that the clothing of my young adulthood--the styles I (supposedly) wore when I was first on my own and trying to find my place in the world--is being co-opted by the fashion houses.

Not surprisingly, they are getting it completely wrong. The fashions they are copying--the layered, plaid, flannel shirts, the ripped black outfits--are what people think was worn back then. But it wasn't really. Maybe the icons of the era--Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, etc.--wore stuff like that, but normal, everyday young women sure didn't.

Here is the heroin-chic grunge look as romanticized by 3.1 Phillip Lim:

Note the plaid shirt tied around the waist, the ironic (or is it meta?) T-shirt, Doc Marten-esque clunky black boots, and short skirt. A short skirt in the early 90s? Uh-uh, wrong.

In reality, girls just weren't this cool back then. Mostly we wore ill-fitting floral prairie dresses with tights and Doc Marten rip-offs. Or overalls. Let's not forget the lovely Farmer Jane look that was so popular then. Our jeans were stone-washed and high-waisted, and our hair was full of split ends.



Here is what the early 90s actually looked like:

These are authentic photos of actual young adults living the dream in 1991. The photos were taken in Missoula, Montana--where many kids from the Northwest went to college, bringing their "grunge" fashions with them.

(Interesting story: the guy with the long hair was from Spokane, Washington, played guitar, and actually KNEW the dudes from Alice in Chains. He had been in Montana for a while and was living without TV, so when I informed him that "Man in a Box" was on heavy rotation on MTV, he almost pooped his pants.)


Do you see any plaid flannel? No. Do our outfits scream HEROIN CHIC? No. White shirts, jeans, sandals--that was pretty much it.

We wore old clothes because we couldn't afford to buy new ones. We all definitely had Doc Marten-type shoes and even a plaid flannel or two, but it's not as if we dressed like Kim Deal every day of the week.

When I see the models strutting down the runway wearing their fake-grunge get-ups, it makes feel like I'm mis-remembering the era.

Was it really that sexy and dangerous? Did we really have such a laconic, jaded, f-off approach to life? Did I miss something?

No, I didn't miss anything. Because I was living it. It just didn't actually look like that. Besides, it was the music that was interesting, not the fashion.

Regardless of how much over-priced designer plaid flannel is bought by the naive masses, the feeling of excitement upon hearing, for the first time, a brand-new song called "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is never coming back.