Popular Nostalgia

Some fashions from our childhood and early days were crazy! Remember them here.

Levi’s continued their advertising history with a little yellow puppet that aimed to shift more of their jeans. The music and the furry little fiend took the world by storm - topping the charts and bringing out a popular imitation puppet. The response was so immense that Levi’s broke their one-campaign-only rule and brought Flat [...]

The Mr Bombastic Levi’s advert was hugely popular in the nineties as the cartoon was clever and funny, but mostly as the soundtrack was so incredibly sexy. Everyone wanted to use it for their program features, soundtracks and parties. Apparently this is the Sting remix of Shaggy’s classic. A great excuse to grind and an [...]

So-called because of the sharp pointy toes of the shoe -similar to the tools used for prising winkles out of their shells. Winkle pickers were worn by “Teddy Boys”, Modernists and Mods. They had Cuban Heels and in the 60’s were best worn with laces down the side and extra-long trousers.

Flower Power was all about peace and the hippy movement. When the Vietnam war was on, hippies protested by burning their draft cards, placing flowers in the barrels of guns and by wearing flowery clothes.

The events of Mouvember have brought back a funny 70’s style to the public’s awareness. Take a gander at these:

Platform trainers were very cool indeed during 90’s spice-mania. Sporty yet, ermm, not-so-feminine. Not very practical for cross training or basketball, but excellent for Tom Cruise. Just look at the monstrosities on the right!

An excellent singer and perfect pin-up for teenage girls, Craig David was the poster boy for UK garage. His album sold loads and he became instantly famous for “7 days”, mainly because it was so liable to spoof versions and mockery at the method of seduction. Little goaty things and cornrows became de riguer for [...]

No, you were not original. Every little nineties girl tried this technical feat at some point in her life. The zig zag parting required patience and skill. In order to look really special, you had to space the diagonals just right. I remember spending about 2 hours trying to get it just right before I [...]

Featured on the start of “Could It be Magic?” by Take That in 1992, large plastic dummies were very cool in the early nineties. I had a one made out of sugar -a kind of boiled sweet. Originating in the clubbing scene of large yellow smily faces, the large plastic dummies were worn on string [...]

The most important skill that any 90’s girl could master was not her cooking, cleaning or housewifery -no, it was the number of scrunchies she could fit into her hair. No cheating though, they had to be large colourful velvet contraptions -preferably with a hairband on top to keep back that massive 90’s fringe. For [...]

Blue mascara and other brightly coloured eye mascara was de rigeur in the early nineties. My friend was ahead of everyone with her bright orange eye makeup, whereas I lagged behind with blue eye-liner and blue mascara. Teamed with small plastic stick-on diamante “jewels”, these beauty tips could make the hottest teeny-bopper in town.
It really [...]

In the UK, at least, bomber jackets were deeply fashionable around the mid to late 1990s.
Everyone had one, it seemed, especially if you were “hard” or thought you were.
A fashion disaster? Well, it’s not the best of looks, but laddish man culture of the 90s was surely preferable to hair straightening, pink shirt wearing, girly [...]

I bought some red spray-on hair mascara when I was about ten years old. My next-door neighbour and I sprayed a smily face on my little brother’s head and proceeded to spray what we thought were very alluring, Geri Halliwell-style red streaks in our hair.
The dye duly came off on our pillows that very night.
The [...]

The names alone are enough to put you off. When I head the American name for these monstrosities I nearly fell off my chair. Never has fashion been under such assault.
Bum bags have never been cool for British 90’s kids. They conjure up images of the Pet Shop Boys and MC Hammer trousers.
A fad for [...]

The whole reason we have 999 -the circular dial telephone took aaaaages to return to start before you could turn the next number in. People didn’t make so many phone calls because it was actually less effort to run round to your mate’s house or write a letter to your granny. I’m not quite of [...]