Why Is Teen Fashion So... Ugly?

I recently spent some time at the mall. It’s something I vigorously try to avoid, but I have a teenage daughter and that complicates my efforts. It seems teenage girls’ life-blood springs directly from the mall… or they can buy it there or something. I don’t know. I try not to get too involved. I just know teen girls must go to the mall frequently or they’ll “die”. And, considering we were having mid-winter break (because two weeks of winter break apparently isn’t enough), and The Kid racked up a good amount of gift cards over Christmas, I agreed to take her.

I also had to go to the Mac Store, which was the true reason for the excursion, because my laptop appears to be dying a slow, painful and rather inexplicable death. I fear it’s going to crash and burn at any moment leaving me with nothing but the smoking, charred remains of my cumulative life’s work at which point I’ll have to stab myself repeatedly through the heart… so we went.

After running his clearly inadequate diagnostic tests, Julio at the Genius Bar told me there was basically nothing wrong with my Mac. However, I know my computer is possessed by a demon force and is about to blow, but Julio – no matter how genius he is (and I do believe he believes himself to be genius) – could not detect it.

So, we left and headed for that hallowed retail ground of teenage youth, H&M.

I don’t know what’s happened in the fashion industry in the past decade or so, but they seem to have abandoned all basic design principles. Like the clothing should look, well, good. While inside H&M – among numerous other stores my daughter and her teenage comrades frequent – I found some rather disturbing fashion trends. And they need to stop. Now.

My daughter pulled this little number off the rack and looked at me with pleading eyes. I said no. I wasn’t spending good money on something that looked like a little old lady with dated fashion sense playing shuffleboard on the Lido deck of a cruise ship headed to Puerto Vallarta might be wearing.

Then I saw this. I think Jan from the Brady Bunch wore this outfit when they went on their Hawaiian vacation.

Seriously, did they drag this outfit out of set storage from Fantasy Island? It’s straight out of 1970. And it didn’t even look good then. Have we learned nothing?

And then there was this, a throw back to my grandma’s wallpaper.

Now that we’ve taken a walk through the horribly misguided 70’s, we enter the 80’s.

My husband once had a sweater like the one on the left when I first met him, only in electric blue. I immediately made him get rid of it.

My eyes nearly broke when I saw this.

Is this meant to be ironic? Please tell me it’s meant to be ironic.

I don’t think it’s meant to be ironic.

Even if it is, it’s so hideous why would the fashion-conscious teenage masses want to wear it?!? Are they even aware it’s meant to be ironic? Most of the references on the clothing predates the kids. They have no idea what the hell a Furby even is. Or who The Rolling Stones or Jimi Hendrix or Pink Floyd, whose album covers grace t-shirts in teen stores, are for that matter.

Finally, I give you this.

Why, teenage girls? Why?

Stacey Gill is an award-winning journalist and mastermind behind the humor blog, One Funny Motha. Her work has appeared on such sites as The Huffington Post, BlogHer, Scary Mommy, and Mamalode. In 2014 she was named one of the Top 10 Funny Parent Bloggers of the Year by VoiceBoks. Perhaps most importantly, she is the proud founder of the Detached Parenting Movement, a child-rearing model she single-handedly developed without any guidance or advanced degrees in child psychology. You can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter.