The 90s are Back

5 minute read

I feel like my mother. I know it happens but here I am. I’m walking through Dublin City Centre or along the main street in Maynooth where I live and I’m rolling my eyes at the young women wearing the clothes I wore a mere decade ago. Fine almost 30 years ago. What is time?

When I was about 15 I discovered some of my mum’s clothes from the late 60s and early 70s. Some she had put in the dressing-up box for us, some were in her wardrobe and all of them found their way to my bedroom.

I wore the fabulous gold appliqué dress that she wore to her engagement party on a night out in Temple Bar, a knit skirt and matching top were worn as separates with flouncy blouses I got in Asha, flares I bought in Eager Beaver and the black Morgan trousers I wore whenever I had to look fancy. I think she was pleased; 90s style was circular dressing before we knew a problem with fast fashion was coming.

My obsession with finding gems in the back of my mum’s wardrobe even extended to my debs and I wore a bright pink velvet 1960s evening dress, silver gloves, costume diamond jewellery and a short haircut that was supposed to be a cross between Posh Spice, Gwyneth Paltrow and Winona Ryder but may have been closer to the woman from the Shake n Vac ad!

I was doing what every generation does and was picking and choosing the best bits from a style decade. I was mooning over Jim Morrison, drawing on beauty spots, parting my hair in the middle and admiring my teenage figure in the tiny clothes my mum had kept.

I was doing all this while living in a south county Dublin suburb, enjoying the freedoms of being a teenage girl in the late 90s, dragging myself to advanced education that was deemed totally normal and enjoying the security of my upbringing. I wasn’t already working full time, considering emigration, thinking about how I’d have to give up my job if I got married, worried about what would happen to me if I didn’t get married and banned from going into certain bars.

I saw a funny tweet recently about the 90s revival. It said: “If you’re going to go 90s have the courage of your convictions and pluck out all your eyebrows”. I guffawed. Anyone in their 40s and 50s still lives in the hideous shadows that over plucking left behind. A whole eyebrow industry has grown on the back of our stupidity. But there’s more I’d like the young women of today to know about the 90s as their huge jeans draw up any moisture on the ground ‘til they’re soaked to the knee.

We had no eyebrows sure, but we also had no internet which meant no social media. No internet meant school projects were entirely copied from Encyclopaedias that were already out of date when they were published, but no social media meant that we never bothered wearing make up to school, our mistakes weren’t recorded to haunt us forever and our nights out were the best craic ever.

We had no mobile phones which meant it was hard to reach people – your parents just had to wait for you to get back – and sometimes you got stood up. But that also meant that you went where you said you were going; there was a cut off point for cancelling on plans and people had an attention span. What even is that? I used to bring a book on the bus! I used to read in the pub until my friends arrived. I used to just stand there and look around me. Mad times. Mad times.

We had no Netflix, or Amazon, or Apple TV, or Now TV or You Tube which meant we all had to watch the same thing at the same time and talk about it in school or college or work. Young people I beg you to find a woman of 44 or over and ask her about the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. She’ll go glassy eyed and talk at you for an hour. Then go watch it on a streaming service. You’re welcome.

We had no Spotify or AirPods but we did have discmans that skipped and terrible foam headphones and we had the best music: The Stone Roses, The Prodigy, Faithless, Nirvana, Pulp, Massive Attack, Daft Punk, Dr Dre and that summer you had to pledge allegiance to either Blur or Oasis (Liam and Noel 4eva).

I’ll never not lose my mind to Firestarter; every single time I hear Jamiroqui I’m transported to the Red Box; and I’m immediately on the dance floor of the USI club if I hear I can’t get no sleep. We danced and danced and danced. There were nightclubs everywhere. Sure, sometimes you had to sing the national anthem and in some places you still had to swap a raffle ticket for a plate of curry, but you only sat down to snog someone; the rest of the time you threw yourself around the dance floor with wild abandon.

I’m making it sound idyllic. It wasn’t perfect, what decade is? Sexism and sexual assault were rife. There were no taxis, and getting home from anywhere meant you were scared for about an hour every time you went out. There was no abortion and you saw the haunted faces of friends as they tried to plan trips to England. There were push-up bras, stupid high heels and no such thing as pay equity or women’s sport.

It was maybe the last great decade, and I know I’m waxing lyrical because it’s when I came of age, but without the pressure of social media or the homogeny of influencers there was a creativity. When you’re not afraid that every moment will be filmed or photographed there’s a freedom. We weren’t being sold to on every screen we glanced at. Plans were made in advance, and you looked forward to things that were months away. Instant gratification took weeks.

I don’t want to go back, because it’s never the same, but I’m glad I have my memories and a few dozen printed photos where everyone has red eyes.