Summer 2024 Trends
In 2005, the schoolyard was filled with awkward teens struggling to find their niche and deciding which color rubber bands to wear on their braces. And then there was me. Not cool, but not uncool. (I would save that for high school when I was the drum major of the marching band).
What I remember most from those middle school years is the day a chance fashion find elevated my status. One morning, I happened to notice the school’s It-girl wearing a pair of mesh sandals. The very shoe — bright pink, embroidered flowers — that I had just bought for $10 at Kohl’s the previous weekend. As I looked up from her feet, I saw that It-girl had paired her shoes with a denim mini skirt and layers and layers of camis, different colored hems peaking out from under a Hollister logo v-neck tee. Suddenly it hit me. It wasn’t my lack of conversation skills or my frizzy curls or my love of theater that was keeping me from the cool kids table, it was my fashion sense (or lack thereof).
The next day I slipped on three layers of camis, a denim skirt (mine was from Goodwill), and the fabulous pink mesh sandals. After pretending to know what I was doing in math and then beating everyone to the answers in English, I made my way to the schoolyard. “I will walk to the swings, right past the cool group,” I thought to myself. I put my all into that strut which I’m sure looked a bit like Mr. Bean walking…well anywhere. And then just as I had hoped, It-girl stopped me. “Oh my God, Soph, we’re twins.” She popped out her foot to tap mine as if to say “cheers.”
“Twins,” I said, beaming from ear to ear. And then it happened: I was chatting with the cool kids. We talked about how totally rude it is that our moms didn’t let us fake tan and how to achieve the perfect scrunched, almost wet looking hairstyle.
Later, after I waved goodbye to my new friends and headed to band practice, I contemplated the power of fashion.
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