next stop, antique

Ok, I know the "skinny jean" (also known to those of us that remember the 80's/early 90's as the "peg-leg") has been back for a year. (Yes, Dolly, a whole year. My friend in Arizona has a special hatred for the tapered leg jean. She's been living in a small town, secluded from fashion trends, and I had the great pleasure of enlightening her in this jean development just recently.) Anyway, it's back - ok. But did we really need to add the tight roll? And then call it "vintage"?? Really???
This photo is from the September '07 J. Crew catalogue I just received in the mail:

"Vintage" is a word that should be used for my mother's old clothing, not mine. And I'm not saying the model looks bad, but she's a model - she's not going to look bad. But what about the rest of us that don't have legs up to our necks, professionals doing our hair and make-up, and air-brushing us? What about those of us that aren't so much "model-shaped", but are maybe a different kind of shape... such as the pear kind of shape? Shortening the pant leg does nothing for stumpiness.
And that isn't all. The big shoe that is pushed is a "ballerina flat" - which means a flat, with a little bow on top. In all different colors. Also, they recommend wearing them with bold colored socks.
So, now we have, tapered leg, rolled jeans, and socks with flats. It's what I used to wear in 7th grade.

I'd like to point to illustration #2 now:

It is unfortunate that I don't have a better photo - you will just have to use your imagination, and trust me that she has both aqua and hot pink socks on with white flats. This is my friend Blay on Halloween our senior year of high school. (I have abided by her wished and concealed her true identity - see Blay, no one can tell who you are! heh, heh) She was an "80's girl" and her costume was great. Know why? Because it was ugly. We were able to laugh at it, because that is what we used to wear when we were young and didn't know better! Now we are 18 and wise, and we will never again wear our hot pink sweater with our turquoise mock t, or have a double hot pink / turquoise scrunchy on top of our heads, or wear socks with flats, or wear any denim that is acid-washed or tight-rolled. No, we will never attire ourselves so foolishly again.
Oh, fashion, you doth make fools of us all.
But I can't go back. I can't embrace the new "vintage" after laughing at it all these years. Do you know what this means? I remember sitting on the bus in college and looking at the graduate students and wondering, "do they know how much they stand out? Do they know that I can tell they are graduate students because they are wearing acid-washed, tight-rolled jeans and rugby shirts?" And then I would wonder if this would happen to me, would I ever be so out of it that someone could tell my age not by my face but by my incredibly out of style clothing? And now I know that it's not quite that... it's not that I don't know, it's that I refuse. I will not go quietly into that good night. I will rage against the dieing of the light. ("The light" in this case being any jeans that don't give my legs the illusion of being even shorter than they really are. Which happens to be very short.)
Ok, I bought some straight-legged jeans, but that's as far as I'm going.

Just thought you might want to know. I'm glad we could have this talk - I feel better now that I've gotten that off my chest. So many deep, meaningful thoughts always burdening me down - it's tough being me.