A colourful fashion blog supporting independents & sustainable fashion in Bristol and beyond since 2011

Wednesday 8 April 2015

Nineties Teen Magazine Queen

As a teenager of the nineties I grew up with an obsession for fashion magazines. Before discovering Vogue, The Face, ID and Dazed and Confused, I was rather partial to a teen fashion magazine. My teen mag of choice was a UK publication named Looks, I know the name is pretty lame but the fashion stories were brilliant. Being a fashion student I pretty much ripped all my Looks mags to pieces, either adding images to the mass collage on my bedroom wall or using them for my ideas and inspirational fashion books, so sadly I have only remnants of my favourite teen magazine left! One thing Looks mag did start was my obsession with fashion, inspiring me to create my own versions of what I saw on the pages and later to design and make my own clothes and go to Fashion college. I had moved on to the higher fashion mags like Vogue by the time I was at fashion college but still found a lot of the fashion stories a bit limited, too grown up perhaps and needed more inspiration, I discovered the alternative street style fash clash mags like The Face and ID and began to mix their alternative anti fashion ideas with Vogue's trend dictated fashion stories to finally arrive at my fashion clash mash up style that I still follow today. Since my late nineties fashion bible, The Face Magazine (and Looks) fell to the demise of the magazine, followed by the arrival of the Internet and social networking in general, I am no longer inspired by magazines at all, I do not buy magazines, I can get everything I need from the Internet for free. It is such a shame that magazine culture seems to have fallen by the way side but it was inevitable, who wants to pay for something they can get for free? Despite this, I still buy the catwalk/ trend issues of Vogue,it's like a tradition to me now, so that's two, yes two, magazines bought a year! I also love to check out the latest catwalk shows on the the Vogue website but I don't really read the rest of the content on the site. Like I magpie, I know what I want from the site and don't have time to look at anything else, especially when I have all my social networking to keep on top of! 
The Internet didn't exist when I was a teenager and the only way I could get fashion inspiration was from Music videos, film, the TV and magazines, the magazines told you about the latest trends, how to wear them and most importantly, where to buy them. It sounds like fashion was dictated to you but you either took it as the way you must wear it or let it inspire you to create your own style using the fashion stories as inspiration. I was the latter.
 The loss of magazine culture as a whole is close to my heart and in a world where everything is so accessible, everyone is a DJ and everyone is famous through social media, I am not sure how the magazine will ever return as a media contender in the future.....
 
Back to the original topic of those nineties teen magazines, I remember 1970's fashion, old school 80's and grunge being major players for theses magazines followed by cute dolly style, Brit pop with skate girls and club culture by the end of the nineties. Think maxi skirts, plaid everything, flared hipster jeans, tight 70's tees, vintage Adidas jackets and tees, old school trainers, layering, Converse, jelly shoes, Dr Martens, pastel mini skirts and dresses, tees under dresses, flared cords and anything from the 70's! Don't forget centre partings, braids, topknots and short hair, I never wore nail varnish or plucked my eyebrows. I wore lots of mascara and was channelling Kate Moss, Bjork, Sarah Cracknell from St Etienne and Chloe Sevigny as my style icons.
 I have added a few examples of nineties fashion stories below sourced on Pinterest with images from Just Seventeen Magazine 1994 and Corinne Day for Vogue UK 1993. Perfect examples of the nineties style I remember and love.

Today's outfit was inspired by those nineties fashion magazines and features topknot buns, a layered tee under a short dress, the essential plaid shirt & Dr Martens. A contemporary but nostalgic look back in the nineties. My Nineties.










All clothing from H&M, Primark & Dr Martens

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ND xx

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