80's Revival: And This Too Shall Pass

I've had it. At first it was just a minor annoyance, but it's become inescapable. Everywhere I look I see relics of a by-gone era that, in my opinion, has few redeemable characteristics. When it was the odd rugby shirt, I thought, "Wow, that's an interesting commentary on my age. The clothes I wore in elementary and junior-high school (I had a green and white striped Benneton rugby shirt that was once the crown jewel of my wardrobe, amongst sweatpants and t-shirts) are once again in style. Odd. I believe I've just gone through an archetypal rite of passage. I must take note." And I did. I was in the Mall walking past Abercrombie and Fitch. What's ironic is that I once used to shop there. Now I wouldn't wear a thing in that store.

Then it got worse. I started seeing teenage girls in leggings and wearing red plastic jewelry. Sometimes the leggings were even striped. My friends and I would chuckle and point at the notable sighting, as if seeing an orange panda. "What are those girls thinking?", we would ask. "Don't they understand that look is terribly unnattractive?". It was only the beginning.

Flash forward to tonight. I see a promo on MTV for Jessica Simpson's new video, where they've made her look like a post-op Richard Simmons. Granted, it would have taken world-class surgeons, and the look requires generous amounts of makeup, but the analogy holds. Why must attractive women fall prey to such terrible fads? Is it a manifestation of some latent self-loathing, a desire to be accepted, or are they actually ignorant to the illusion that this clothing looks good in some absolute sense? In any event, the result is dissapointing, and I've lost the strength to ignore it. I'm now mentally lobbying for it's conclusion, and a more attractive future.