Gloria Vanderbutt
Posted by: ciswy in junior high school, tags: fashion, jeans, junior highShannon Des Roches Rosa
Junior High
I’m wearing Gloria Vanderbilt jeans as I type. Got them and a pair of Calvin Kleins at Costco, for seventeen dollars per pair — which doesn’t exactly scream quality. Since Costco’s lack of dressing rooms means I didn’t try them on beforehand, and they are lycra-laced while I fear belts, they require constant hitching by day’s end.
Yet I love them, ecstatically and nostalgically, as only a former designer-jeans-craving junior high school girl from the earliest 80’s can.
We were obsessed with designer jeans in upper elementary and junior high school, thanks to various brands’ aggressive marketing campaigns and a steady diet of their TV commercials. We wanted Calvin Kleins so we could writhe into spoken-word poses like Brooke Shields! We wanted to sport Gloria Vanderbilt’s name proudly, on our bottoms! We wanted Jordache, we wanted Sassoon, we wanted Sergio Valente, we wanted Bon Jour.
But designer jeans were expensive — around $50 each, in non-adjusted 1981 dollars. And I came from a family in which three rowdy, growing brothers blew through or blew out several pairs of jeans each year. My parents had not been brainwashed into designer jeans worship, and weren’t about to spend crazy money on clothes they considered casual and utilitarian.
My parents didn’t understand how my heart ached for designer jeans. I wanted them. I needed them. When friends had me over to show off their new jeans, I would palm the discarded informational tags so I could take them home and pore over them: “The Sassoon fit is extremely tight! You may need to lie on your back, on the floor, in order to zip them up.” I resented my plain beige Health-Tex trousers, which came with no such warning labels.
My friends and I talked about designer jeans all the time. We wrote comic strips featuring characters like Gloria Vanderbutt. I even wrote a play, “Jeans and Stuff,” — a nasty work of petty tweener materialism and social seething that my friend Michael’s mother agreed to type up (Why? How could she stand it?) and which I still have, although I cannot bring myself to read it.
My parents eventually gave in, probably so they wouldn’t have to listen to my whining. They took me to a jeans warehouse carrying all the brands I craved — Calvin Kleins and Gloria Vanderbilts excepted — for less than $20 each. By seventh grade, and through throwing all of my back-to-school points and paper route funds at that store, I had amassed five (5!) pairs of designer jeans. (Counterfeiting never even pinged my one-track mind.)
I wrote up a jeans schedule and posted it over the white & gilt headboard of my butterfly fabric canopy bed — where a good little Catholic girl would have a picture of Jesus — so I would not sin and wear the same jeans on the same day of the week, two weeks in a row. I would sometimes assign tops (I had a few Izod shirts of equally questionable origin, one lavender dress shirt with a matching pink-and-purple argyle vest, and a maroon velour v-neck shirt that I really loved), but ensembles weren’t really the point. I was wearing designer jeans, and, by their distinctively patterned, signature pocket designs, all the junior high world would look upon me, and despair!
Not that wearing the right jeans helped my social status. I remained, as I still do, a huge dork. But the right jeans made me a happy dork. And now, through the rekindled magic of warehouse shopping, I’m a happy dork once again.
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Ah, the memories! I remember that, in junior high, a girl wasn’t cool if she didn’t also own at least two pair of Candie’s platform shoes, too. Ugh.
OMG, I remember the tight jeans, candy highheels, and big hair. We all looked horrible but thought we were so cool. Glad those days are over. To day however, I am just glad to find a pair that fit without my butt sticking out, but still won’t spend $200 on jeans… Did you ever for jeans!
Oh yes- it was Guess and Z Cavaricci when I was in High School. Oh how I needed them. Never got though. Which is probably why I have so many issues. If I only had onnne pair! I probably could have married a doctor or lawyer. Lol.
And “gummy bracelets”? Who could forget trying to cram 54 of those rubber, Madonna-inspired things onto your arm?!? Hahaha…. awesome post.
I had three pairs of Guess jeans in high school, but only after I started working at Miller’s Outpost and got 50% off.
My daughter (a middle schooler) just got a pair of jelly shoes. No bracelets, though.
-Shannon
Do you remember Chemin De Fer? http://bit.ly/2xHHSC Those were the most amazing. jeans. ever. I had Gloria Vanderbilt jeans too, but I had to get those instead of Calvin Klein jeans because I had HIPS in the 5th grade, and hourglass figures did not fit into the Calvin Klein look.
My birthday gift from my dad in 6th grade was a pair of Guess jeans and a peach sweatshirt with dark peach irregularly shaped triangles all over it. I looked horrible in peach, and the jeans were practically capris given how tall I was. I was so happy…and my bangs… they were so big….
OMG how could I forget Chemin de Fer — I had a pair of their *overalls*. In white! At what point in my life did I ever think I could get away with wearing white overalls?
When I finally got my coveted pair of Jordache jeans I literally bawled like a baby after my friend’s West Highland Terrier lifted his leg and pissed all over them.
Can you imagine?? Desecrating designer jeans that way?!!!
Thank God I’m a guy!
i cringe when i think of how badly I wanted those ugly-ass liz claiborne purses….
I was only allowed to watch PBS. No fashion magazines, either. No jeans problem! I’m pretty sure my mom actually dressed me in boy jeans in elementary school.
In high school I wore something from Sears, most likely. Lee, I think. I learned how to peg them during a multi-school international field trip, when a girl from another school cheerfully took pity on me and felt this was something I should know.
So… bigger geek than you!
Holy crap, we must be exactly the same age. Yes, yes, and yes. All the way down to the maroon velour v-neck. It was a NEED. I love that Sergio ad with everyone roller skating…totally! And after the whole designer jeans extravaganza, it was all about Benetton and Esprit, which were also hard to come by. With two sons who have thus far been quite protected from commercial TV, I have not yet had to deal with this as a mother, but I’m sure my day will come.
I’m totally tweeting you a picture of me in 5th grade in the velour shirt. Dork, indeed.
I so remember all of this. My only pair of Jordache were hand-me-downs, and I wore them with pride. Never mind that I was skinny as a stick and STILL had to lie flat to zip them up. I can’t believe I was allowed out of the house in those.
Thanks for bringing to memory all of the social awkwardness of growing up – it has already helped me to understand what my 5yo daughter is going through in Kindergarten, and makes me wonder how my 7yo son with autism is coping as well as he does. Because your blog has been that meaningful to me, I left you a present on my blog – I’ve nominated you for the Lemonade Stand Award! To accept, you must comply with the following conditions:
- Put the Lemonade logo on your blog or within your post. You can lift it off my blog (http://jonsmomblog.com).
- Nominate at least 10 blogs with great attitude or gratitude.
- Link the nominees within your post.
- Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
- Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.
Take care,
Judy
and THIS is why I adored my school uniform.