What uncool clothes or shoes did you have to wear growing up, because you were poor or your parents were cheap?

Golly, you were lucky. We had to make do with some old bread bags, cardboard and gaffers tape.

My god! I had Trax too!!

I tried to convince a classmate that they were designer shoes but he knew they were a Kmart brand

[quote]I often had to wear hand-me-down Trax.

I think this is one of the saddest sentences I have ever read on DL.

You win OP.

I wore my sister’s hand me down jeans. I had no idea that the crotches were made different fir boys and girls so hated how tights hers were down there

Waiting for the Darfur Orphan to chime in here...

We had to put wax paper in our boots. I don't remember why? Was it that they leaked?

R2, it's a specific strain of bitchiness that prompted the rich kids - who never shopped at Kmart or Woolco or any other downmarket store - to bother to know the brands that poor kids had to wear.

I got my sneakers from an end cap display in Winn-Dixie.

I was a little lard ass in the 80's. So my mother bought me Sears "Toughskin" cords in the HUSKY sizes.

Fat little fucker who could eat an entire cake in one sitting!!!

Wrangler jeans. Levis were for rich people.

I wore dried locusts stuck together with dirt and spit.

Even worse, I often had to wear hand-me-down dried locusts stuck together with dirt and spit.

Darfur Orphan, why would you wear food as clothes?

We were kind of poor. Our hand me downs went form oldest girl cousin, younger girl cousin, my older brother, then my brother and I. We also shopped at "Sears" for our school clothes ( Remember those pants that had the thick hard reinforced knees?). I also got one pair of dress shoes (Buster Browns), and one pair of sneakers from a REAL shoe store. At least at Christmas tiime we were able to pick out three items from the Sears Wish Book.

I wore Payless shoes that came unglued in the rain and my mother’s Lee jeans with roomy hips.

I remember getting hand me down underwear from some boys in our church once. One of them liked to put crayons up his butt, which was hot to watch.

I love these stories about growing up working class in midcentury Flyoverstan.

Not being sarcastic--you all have incredible memories for detail and some historian who is studying midcentury America will have a field day going through these threads at some point.

We were not poor but my mother knew I wasn't worth buying nice clothes for.

From 8-13 I looked like Porky Pig's uglier twin brother.

I'd offer to bake brownies for my family and eat them all in 2 days.

And Mum wonders why I'm gay...

I grew up on the East Coast, my mom would take us 'shoe shopping' at the local moderately priced shoe stores, such as Miles, National Shoes ("National Shoes...ring the bell" was their slogan) and Thom McCann. There were also the more expensive mom & pop local independent shoe stores where my mom would buy us shoes for special occasions, like a wedding or Christmas.

My father liked to make us think we were poor, but he sure had money to spend on the latest TV or electronic equipment. He'd also buy a new car every 2-3 years.

R9 I had the same fat boy pants experience. I remember feeling embarrassed and flushed when I had to accompany my mother to the aisle emblazoned with a Husky sign. The only difference is my fatness was related more to my near daily consumption of store brand chocolate marshmallow ice cream, topped with a banana, peanut butter, and chocolate syrup.

Those cheap sneakers were the launching pad for future foot problems.

I always had cheap sneakers up until I was 16 and earned my own money working summer jobs. They used to call them "skips". I used to be kidded for them. The first good pair I bought were Pro Keds. I could run much better with them too without skidding.

I had no idea we were poor

North Star shoes instead of Adidas

I had a knockoff Members Only jacket. It didn’t have Members Only on the pocket, of course, but at least it didn’t have any other brand name on the outside.

We were dressed out of various lost & found boxes. My mom would hit different stores and tell them her kids left their jackets, scarves, boots, etc at the store and she'd get all of our outerwear from the box. She even came home with some cool designer sunglasses!

Toughskins when we were flush with cash (thanks, Fat Whore @ R9, I couldn't remember the brand).

When cash was slim, it was whatever was in the seconds bins at Vanity Fair or whatever was on the rack at House of Bargains.

[quote] We also shopped at "Sears"

Why is Sears in quotation marks?

We wuz po.

This is more like a confession: my folks actually had me wear a light blue leisure suit at one point. Yikes!

My parents had a Sears charge so it was definitely Toughskins and the like for me. Whatever cheap shoes were there, too. I can't remember getting clothes from anywhere else until I was a teenager.

Later I got most of my wardrobe, including shoes, at Hills Department Store.

We weren't super poor or anything, but my dad was cheap. And my school district was in a town that was a very nouveau riche suburb. I remember one little asshole driving daddy's sports car to school, stepping out in his argyle sweater. I was there in my white jeans and my brother's Rolling Stones t-shirt and looked a damn mess in comparison.

My father worked at the Post Office but there were 9 of us so many had to be spent carefully. Both parents were children of the Depression so they *really* knew what poor was. My parents never cut corners on shoes, though. We always had good shoes -- maybe not fashionable or trendy, but solid footwear. I thank them for that every day as an eldergay now. Many of my contemporaries have problems with their feet and it's miserable.

I and the younger kids had hand-me-downs which I didn't mind, but my mother did get a lot of our clothes at the Salvation Army which embarrassed me. One time a shirt still had the price tag pinned to the collar and my friend Tom removed it with no comment because he got his clothes there too. I don't know whether to enjoy that story or not, even all these years later.

I had one pair of shoes & no winter coat through 4 years of high school (in NY). I was shunned. Sat by myself at lunch. Only a big lesbian girl was nice to me. Her family had money so I ate dinner there whenever I could finagle it. Otherwise it was TV dinner alone. I weighed 88 lbs when I graduated. Nobody cared.

My mom made me wear corduroy pants at a time they were NOT cool (early 1990s). She had bought them on sale and I thought they were so ugly.

As an adult, I now see they’re in style again...would’ve been nice as a 10 year old.

[quote] ("National Shoes...ring the bell" was their slogan)

National Shoes...your feet smell

R34 corduroy pants were a hallmark of early 90s grunge fashion. You could have rocked them!

I was solidly middle class, as were all my friends and neighbors and classmates We all got one pair of “school shoes” and one pair of sneakers that we wore to school on gym days. Boots were almost always hand me downs for everyone. My mom bought all of my clothes and I wore whatever she picked out. She has incredible style and knows how to shop for bargains. Her favorite store was Alexander’s.

It wasn’t until I got to middle school, where we mixed with kids who were upper middle class, that I became aware of labels. I rejected anything that came from Alexander’s and only wanted clothes from A&S or Macy’s.

Then I wanted to pick out my own clothes. In 7th grade (1979) my mom gave me $100 to go pick out my own clothes That was the budget for the whole school year. I was dismayed that I couldn’t stretch the budget as much as my mom could but at least I had Levi’s instead of Wrangler or Gap jeans and a pair of Adidas.

My mom still buys me clothes. And sadly, Alexander’s and A&S are both gone, and Macy’s is a shithole. Now she shops at TJ Maxx and Marshall’s.

And that's enough said about corduroy.

R33 please tell me that things are better now. Your post made me sad. When I was in 8th grade I was an outcast of sorts, and never quite figured out why. I feel your (much worse) pain. I'm sorry.

Kmart and Sears version of Polo and Izod shirts

R33 88 pounds? Sounds a little porky to me.

In Junior High, OP clothes were all the rage and I kept asking my parents for OP striped polos and surf print t-shirts, but they kept bringing me knock-off brands and Hang Ten. A few years later, it was all about Izod Lacoste shirts, but I'd always get Le Tigre.

Luxury!

All my shoes were from Payless and Fayva. I thing one of them was called KANGAROOS.

Nobody made fun of me because I was already known as a bully, albeit a strictly verbal one.

Pay and Save (the equivalent to Kmart in Hawaii) had "VIP Only" jackets, obvious cheap knockoffs of Members Only

My dad, who was a cheap motherfucker, bought me a pair of Traxx instead of Norsport (an old Nordstrom brand) tennis shoes. My mom was so mortified, I was able to guilt her into buying me my first pair of Vans.

When my mother brought home a pair of Pro Wings from Payless instead of Nike Airs for me to wear to school, my 11-year-old self reacted in much the same way that Dawn Davenport did when she didn’t get cha cha heels on Christmas.

I remember wanting a pair of Keds and getting a Caldor brand instead.

I LOL'd at R46

Dolly Parton proudly wore her coat of many colors that her mother made from a box of rags.

Even as a very young lesbian, I was frumpy and didn't care about fashion. I would have been fine buying my clothes at Ames (similar to K-Mart), but my mom insisted on taking me to JCPenny and getting name brand jeans and shoes (sneakers, of course) instead.

My mom became a Mason shoe salesperson, which basically meant she bought all of our crappy shoes from them for a slight discount. No one else would buy the damned things.

An' I hadda walk 20 miles, uphill, through the snow, into the wind, and back again, every day.

I had to wear a Catholic school uniform which I thought was uncool at the time. In retrospect, I was lucky to attend that school. We actually diagrammed sentences & had penmanship classes. A neighbor who went to a public school told me they didn't learn penmanship & she was jealous of my handwriting. Who knew!

^^^Uphill both ways? Lol

My poor brother had a very wide foot as a child. The only place my mom could find wide shoes for children was Stride Rite, so my brother had to wear Zips until he reached adolescence. Then, he raised such a fuss that my mom caved and let him buy Nikes. He bought larger sizes to compensate for the width, and he lived with the pain. Anything to get out of those Zips.

Today's kids (and adults) are lucky for Zappos and other online sites that carry shoes in wide sizes. It was nearly impossible to find wide shoes at the mall in the 80s and 90s.

R6 I don’t think anyone mentioned about the wax paper in boots yet. It was to get them more easily on and off. As mentioned they were many times hand me downs, or too small by next season. Wax paper slid on the sock and inside the boot and as a slick surface between the two helped getting them on and off, which was quite a struggle with children in snowsuits already overheated getting ready to go out and play in the snow. One of the big stories of my brother’s youth was how he rescued a little girl whose white gogo boot got stuck in the snow drift and he carried her home heroically.

R56, I never used wax paper but other kids used old bread bags on their feet over their socks. I always figured they had leaky boots but getting them on and off easier makes more sense now.

I grew up in 1970s Central Pennsylvania where the whole idea of factory outlets started and you literally went to the grounds of the actual factory to buy clothes and shoes, not some clean polished mall stores like today, which is all rubbish. There were trips in late summer and spring, usually to Reading. There were levels of things available including “firsts,” which was the same thing sold in the stores, but at discount (cutting out the middleman of the department stores), “seconds” which were usually out of season goods or overruns of production and “thirds” that usually had some flaw to them, some more noticeable than others like a small hole or pulled thread or partially faded.

These were good clothes very well made, fashionable and good quality by brand named producers. We usually had traditional places we went to like one store in particular that we always bought our new winter coats each year. Especially things like underwear were only bought at outlet stores. There were also food stores like pretzel factories and potato chip factories we would go to and buy things from. It was always a fun trip to make and while not everyone we knew did this, many families did.

By 1984 in college it was still enough of a thing that I took a group of friends to the outlets during spring break, and another classmate from Lebanon and I explained how you shop outlets. You never purchased something as soon as you saw it, you always spent the first couple of hours canvassing all the outlets before you even considered making a purchase. Somehow you remembered where everything was and then went back and made your purchases on round two. It is amazing what $200-$300 dollars would buy you, whole new wardrobes.

R57 True about the bags, also another thing homes at that time always had these paraffin bars around. It looked like a box of butter, but were four stacked flat bars of paraffin wax. We also rubbed this on the inside of boots to help slip them on and off more easily. Life hacks circa 1972.

Fat fuck from above. Even though I looked like a less attractive version of Jabba The Hut, were Reeboks cool in 1986? Even at my peak of fatness at the age of 9, I insisted on pair of Reeboks. I had a cheap pair of Fayva "Olympian" High Tops and told my mother (in between bites of Snickers Bars and my belabored breathing) that I could not show up any school anymore unless I had a pair of Reeboks. Were they cool then? Or was I just a basic bitch?

I did get the Reeboks.

I remember wanting cheap LA Gear shoes because of their slick marketing campaigns.

I rarely wore sneakers, but I preferred Reebok to Nike.

And by the way, I had not even thought about the embarrassment of being seen under the "Husky" sign buying those oversized freak show cords.

I think someone mentioned that above. There was an ACTUAL HUSKY sign-

I was a little fucker then. I ate like there was no tomorrow, yet I felt absolute disdain being seen under that HUSKY sign. I remember HATING my mother.

And shit, R61! I remember LA Gear in 87/88- I thought those were kind of cool then, weren't they? They didn't last long though. Maybe 4 years (the brand)

[quote]were Reeboks cool in 1986?

I remember obsessing about buying a pair sometime between 1984 and 1986. They were a new brand, IIRC.

I am female - looking back. my lovely mother must have had a raging case of ADD - for important school dances, plays and school uniforms she would always say - “Oh - I can make something SO MUCH nicer than this!” From age 8 to 18 I NEVER had a zipper!! She would dawdle and ALMOST finish stuff - and I would freak out - ok - um Are you going to Hem it? Um - Shouldn’t you start on the zipper? I’ll be damned if I wasn’t pinned in every time. For the big deal 8th grade dance - all of the girls acted like they were buying wedding dresses. My mom made me this beautiful pink dress with a circle skirt - she closely copied Kim Novak’s pink moonglow party dress when she was Madge in “Picnic.” Um - as wonderful as it was at 14 was no Kim Novak - I was so embarrassed to be in a home made dress! The dance started at 7pm - at 7:30 she had given up the zipper and I was being straight pinned into it - I was mortified as only an ungrateful 14 year old could be. .... I didn’t dance with William Holden that night - but sexy John Farina slow danced with me to “How deep is your Love” - I had straight pins jamming into my back. I kept that dress hanging on my door all summer - it smelled like J Farina’s sweat and aftershave .... I begged my mom to buy me Calvin Klein jeans - she wouldn’t - she would buy corduroys in all colors with matching sweaters - my chubbiy thighs would make the corduroy make noise when I walked down the hall. I was SO SQUARE people would mistake me for a substitute teacher!

OH MY GOD! YES! The corduroy noise!!! My fat hog legs almost started a fire with all that friction!! This thread is now triggering.

R65- I love that story though. It's really cool.

John Farina is a hot name.

I was actually really lucky, because my parents were pretty cool about things, and allowed me to pick-out my own clothes and shoes. I'm sure at times they thought WTF, but after expressing an opinion, they usually dropped the subject, at least until I was in my room and out of hearing range.

[quote] were Reeboks cool in 1986?

I don't remember Reeboks being cool or uncool. Seems like when Nike hit the scene, it fell into the background. However, I think Reeboks then became work shoes. IIRC, restaurants workers wore black Reeboks as part of a uniform.

R58 I never got to go to Reading but I still remember the early days of outlets when a lot of that still held true, before they because just another mall with the same stores and same prices and a few bargain shops.

I truly loved the JCPenney outlets. I lived in PA and would go visit friends in Columbus and always, always made time to go to the outlet there. $100 would buy me three or four shirts, two pairs of pants, a pair of shoes and as many home goods items as one would need or want.

R65...such a great story. Glad you shared.

Threads like this make me grateful for the parents I had. Except for exploding in tears over having to wear a snowsuit once when I was in kindergarten, I was never forced to wear anything that embarrassed me. My mother picked out our clothes until I was a teen, and I had to wear a school uniform until tenth grade.

After that, I started buying my own clothes, either with my parents' money or that which I earned working in a local department store men's department. I was a pretty well-dressed kid, and I made sure my same-sized brother was, too.

[quote]I had a knockoff Members Only jacket.

Me, too. I think the brand was "Pretty Much Anybody."

We also had a company in town that made college sweatshirts, T-shirts, and the like. A few times a year, they would sell all the misprints, double-prints, upside-down prints, etc. It sounds cool to me today (now that I am out of f's to give), but at the time it was horrifying.

R67- Same here.

By the time my fat phase ended around 1992, I was all about Ralph Lauren. And Z Cavarrici pants and Francois Girbaud jeans.

I recall liking Abercrombie and Structure then too. And some brand called "Generra".

My mother was cool about it and would make me pay for half of my clothes from my part time job. But she would always buy me the brands I liked at Christmas.

As a single mother, I realized later, it was not easy for her.

And yes, R65's story gives me LIFE.

John Farina sounds HOT!!!!!!

John Farina was a total John Travolta look alike - he was one of the “men” in Jr High - you know that dividing line from the little boys that didn’t have a growth spurt yet. He had a beautiful back - I LOVED watching him opening his locker. He was a very pleasant young guy. Looking back - he was sort of like Joey on Friends! ..

OH MY GOD Madge. You SHOULD HAVE FUCKED HIM!!!!! I sure do hope you did.

Dang girl. The name alone gives me hot pants!

And yeah, when I was really little- I think 1st grade- My mother forced me to wear a WHITE TURTLENECK for my school picture day.

I remember BAWLING to her- I CAN'T BREATHE IN IT and it looks STUPID!!!!

I was fucking humiliated. And I was actually sobbing.

"You are wearing the turtleneck!"

I looked like a douche.

R68- I recall Nike's always being the "cool shoe" and Reeboks were the "new" cool shoe for 2-3 years. But Nike's never lost their cool. Reeboks lost their cool in the 90's..

I wore Nikes for years before I ever heard of Reeboks. But I lived in Portland thenadays.

John Farina makes me moist.

#76 - I was so square at 14 - John Farina was “too big a fish to wrangle” into my boat - I wouldn’t have known what to do with him! ... Plus my mom was never one to wait in the car - She would walk onto a dance floor, into a dr’s exam room, into a dark movie theatre, or tap on a steamy car window to let me know she was there and it was time to go home.!

Madge, girl. Damn.

14 is very young though.

He sounds like a great guy.

I wore GoodWill secondhand shoes, but they wrote the price in huge black marker on the sole. The price NEVER wore away. I went to a church school and there was a lot of altar kneeling and every shit face Joked about the price of my shoes. To this day, I crouch to suck a dick because I’m religiously scarred.

A girl in grade school assumed I was poor because I wore Trax shoes. I laughed because I was a spoiled brat who had and got everything I wanted. It did make me become more brand aware though.

[quote]We were dressed out of various lost & found boxes. My mom would hit different stores and tell them her kids left their jackets, scarves, boots, etc at the store and she'd get all of our outerwear from the box.

SHAMELESS!

A kid I grew up with recently posted class pics from the early 70s. No one wore jeans or sneakers. All of the girls wore dresses, most with tights, some with long socks. Some boys wore ties, but most wore collared shirts, some with vests. A few wore turtlenecks.

It made me remember my 3rd grade class pictures when I was having a conniption fit that one girl was wearing a sweatshirt on picture day. I wanted her to have to stand in the back so it wouldn’t be so noticeable and that she was ruining the picture. My teacher threatened to kick me out of the picture if I didn’t shut up. I remember the incident so clearly and am still ashamed because now I realize that the girl was poor and/or something was going on at home and no one cared that it was picture day. She moved away during the school year.

Does anyone know if they still do class pictures and if kids dress up?

R85, more like brilliant IMO. It’s generally people who can afford to lose important articles of clothing who do.

Adidas stirrup track pants were what everyone wanted. Black with the Adidas stripe down the side. I got brown pace two stripe track pants. I laugh now but I was horrified then.

[quote]I wanted her to have to stand in the back so it wouldn’t be so noticeable and that she was ruining the picture. My teacher threatened to kick me out of the picture if I didn’t shut up.

Get a load of Lil Beverly Sutphin here!

I want John Farina inside me quite deeply.

[quote] were Reeboks cool in 1986?

Reeboks were very cool at least among girls in the mid 80s. Nike’s were “boys” shoes and Reebok capitalized on this by introducing their high top style in fashion colors like pink and yellow and tying them into the the aerobics fad. I wore white Redbox high tops that had to be pristine. There was even a special sole and shoe whitener we’d use on them to keep them neat.

Actually, those Trax shoes at OP look cute.

R50 - funny you say that. A lesbian colleague that worked for two years in Madrid was just totally frumpy as well and couldn't care less. She always raved about her years in Madrid but she never showed us pictures. Finally, we talked her into it at the Christmas party...turns out that while there she was dating a woman who was a manager at a major department store and what do you know? Margot had a bob, highlights, and high heels with a pencil skirt. We never let her live it down. TBH she had lost 30 lbs while there cycling to work and walking everywhere so being slim and getting discounted designer stuff was probably a new thrill.

Knockoff Keds from Fayva.

Another pair of shoes from Fayva for school. I went to Catholic school so I had to wear either black or blue shoes. In September when school started my dad would take me to that trash heap store and buy the shittiest pair of shoes. One school year, the soles were coming off by the next May.

R92, those were before the 80s. Our Trax shoes looked like Adidas with saw-toothed stripes instead of smooth stripes.

Also, you bought these new, BUT you had to make sure both shoes were the same size even if they were tied together.

[quote] [R92], those were before the 80s. Our Trax shoes looked like Adidas with saw-toothed stripes instead of smooth stripes.

I remember wearing shoes that had saw-toothed stripes. Where I grew up, nobody (that I can remember) had Adidas. I don't remember being ashamed of my saw-toothed shoes. I think I was probably more conscious of my outfits being on short rotation.

I also remember wearing knock-off Adidas jackets. But like I said, nobody really had authentic Adidas stuff. We were all wearing knock-offs proudly.

It wasn’t until the very late70’s that people became brand aware about clothing.

Anyone else remember Adidas = All Day I Dream About Sex.

Reeboks were definitely trendy for a time in the 80s. Remember Cybill Shepherd wearing them with designer gowns on the red carpet? I seem to remember associating them with Michael J. Fox as well. I actively avoided them because all the assholes at school we’re obsessed with them. Never owned a Swatch for the same reason.

I had these bell bottoms that were patterned like a yes and yellow quilt. I wore them to school once and kids made so much fun of them.

Years later, I saw a guy wear the same pants in college. It brought back lots of bad memories

[quote] that were patterned like a yes

uh, what?

R98 reminded me I had a hand-me-down ADIDAS shirt when I was a little kid and got very embarrassed when a high schooler told me what it (allegedly) stood for. I don’t think I ever wore it again.

R100, I chose the coolest dark orange corduroy flares from Goodwill and wore them on a field trip to see “The Nutcracker” in third grade (forest green top). I had to walk a specific way to get full impact, but called a fag by a strange kids who were clearly not going to heaven.

This was around the time I tried to wear gold lamp chain as a belt with the ends hanging at each side. When I spun around, I was dangerous!

When I was in grade school my Nana made most of my clothing and what she didn't make she bought me a church rummage sales.

When my mother and she had a falling out when I was in 6th grade I didn't have that. I eventually wound up with maybe 3 outfits that I would wear, handwash in the bathtub each night and hang up to 'dry'. Dry is in quotes because hand washed clothes don't dry when hung in the winter.

You genuinely do not know what cold is until you put on half dried clothes and go out into a Vermont winter. Spoiler alert, a 10-11 year old also can't really get hand washed clothes clean. I had quite literally the worst nickname a child ever had. No, I will not say what it was.

Since the age of 13 or so I have been the best dressed and best scented person in any room. People comment on how well dressed and groomed and stylish I am. Little do they know.

See- I got kinda lucky in that I am currently 6’9. So, hand-me-downs would only last a few months (I was always the tallest guy there). Eventually I had to do the big and tall route because you weren’t finding a 38’ inseam on fashionable clothes or a size 15 on most shoes. Honestly, even now I will stock up on shirts / pants if I find a size that works. It did help the whole jealous thing- no sense being upset if the cool fashion doesn’t exist. It also means I am not a car guy- no sense dreaming about a Porsche when you are too tall to get behind the wheel. B

[quote] 6'9"

[quote] size 15 on most shoes

Okay, I'm hard just reading that.

103 - If you wore either one of those things today you would be a superstar! I am totally intrigued by the lamp chain belt! .... Some of these posts are heart breaking - kids can be so cruel - it lingers! We lived in Boston for 2 years Jr high/high school years - from LA and back again - but being new across the country and not knowing the coastal styles of Mean Girls was brutal!

It was inspired by Cher, R107, and I had to smuggle the belt out of the house. My older brother confiscated it in the school bathroom because his room had no view. I just remember twirling with hands held like Diana Prince to measure the correct length of the chain.

The middle class and rich have pecking orders and snobbery and shame as well. I grew up in a middle class bubble and was shocked in JHS when my school combined with the wealthy suburb in one high school. All these new brands and lifestyles. I was never a snob to whatever was lesser. But I was always striving for the next level. I didn't fully toss it off until I was 40.

PF Flyer wearer here.

i'll tell a funny story. I wanted an Izod Lacoste shirt very badly, but my parents were too cheap to splurge on stuff like that. i was probably about 8 years old and one day i was walking home from school and found an Izod alligator logo in the grass. Some kid probably ripped it off his shirt. The next day i went in my closet and found an old sweater and glued the Izod alligator onto the sweater. I'm sure it looked fake, and being so young i probably didn't place it the right way. Anyway, i wore it to school the next day. No one said anything, and i felt cool in my fake Izod sweater.

OP, at least your parents didn't shop at Pic-Way (2 pair for $5)--leather that looked like plastic and cardboard inside. No one would want to be caught dead there. Thankfully, despite being cheap, my Dad never expected us to shop there or K-Mart, for that matter. We usually went to Thom McAn or Nobil (a similar Midwestern chain).

We didn't have much brand consciousness around me, but no one wanted to be caught dead buying from Spartan-Atlantic, an early discount chain that made Zayre or KMart seem upscale. Ditto Robert Hall which sold cheap mostly mens clothes on pipe racks, The worst was Lynns which sold "dollar dresses"---they had a more inner city trade but I've heard girls cringe from the memory of those things. They also sold cheap men's and children's clothing but were known for the women's. Some of the more upscale discount chains like Gold Circle did sell Keds. Adidas were the original cool shoe, before being eclipsed by Nike. Reebok was really more about fitness classes and, as mentioned above were more cool for girls. Puma had a brief period of also being call, although not Nike cool.

Kids who grew-up in the 70s/80s seemed to be first big cohort with brand consciousness. Brands like Ocean Pacific, Polo, etc. It took a while for legitimately quality outdoor brands like NorthFace and Patagonia to be recognized as fashion.

R75 I knew a guy named John Farina who was from Yonkers, very cute with a big chipped tooth which actually made him sexier and adorble, who was a proofreader where I had a long-term temp job at a law firm. I think he was closeted bi though. I wonder what ever became of him. Hmmm.

R97 Maybe about clothes in general, but not sneakers. Some kids called me out for not wearing Keds -- their word was "Skips", said very derogatorily. I think Converse might have been ok later on, but Keds was "it".

R313 And yes, Farina would have picked up my incorrect spelling of "adorable". :) I only wished he had picked me up! Sigh.

Well in middle class and wealthy high school, branded sportswear was VERY important in the 70s. In particular skiing, tennis, but also hunting, hiking and camping.

My father worked (briefly) in a textile factory. This was in the early 70s. They made industrial textiles, rough, hardwearing stuff . Not suitable for clothing. Anyway sometimes my father would bring home offcuts and my mother would make me little outfits- polyester sweatshirts with matching trousers. For added style my father would draw a Disney character onto a little patch and my mother would sew it onto the back pocket. Looking back, a lot of time and effort went into these creations. I loved them, but I was way too young to understand what was cool or fashionable. Sometimes we got a sack of second hand clothes from a local charity. My parents really were broke.

113- that isn’t the same John Farina - but your’s sounds pretty darn sexy to me! I don’t think my JF was a big reader!!!......117 - That is such a sweet story!.......108 - Diana Prince - I love it!!

I recall a box of shoes that someone gave us. My momma put the shoes to use. There were shoes of many colors Every shoe was small. And I didn't have shoes. And it was way down in the fall. Momma sewed the shoes together. Sewin' every piece with love. She made my shoes of many colors. That I was so proud of. And then she died.

[R33] still worried about you, 33. I hope your closet is busting out with cool threads these days. I had some hand me downs from god knows who (I was an only child) so it must’ve been from the kid of one of my mothers friends. I only had a few things, and they were all ugly. My parents weren’t poor, they just didn’t care. I told my camp counselor that I was poor and lived in a shack, which is why my clothes didn’t fit. I remember being such a drama Queen, looking up at her all trembly and telling my tales of woe. She had long smooth honey blonde hair and a tan and was so 70’s perfect. I basked in her pity like a lizard in the sun, a lizard in hideous polyester shorts.

This was too high dollar for us.

Thank you 0P for bringing up memories that I long thought I buried away because they were so painful! To be reminded I once wore Trax sneakers has knocked my self-esteem down a few pegs.

[quote]Her favorite store was Alexander’s.

"I'm sauntering through Saks,

meandering through Macy's,

but I buy at Alexander's

I buy at Alexander's!"

I shoplift, at Alexander's!

We were middle class I guess, but barely and my parents while never cheap, were certainly thrifty! I wore PF Flyers as a small child supplied by my grandparents, Keds, Converse and Nike after. I didn't care as long as they were new I was happy.

My sister babysat and saved her money, and she bought her own clothes starting in the 8th grade. Being two years younger, I was desperate to do the same, so I saved my Christmas, birthday and odd job money and she taught me where and how to shop, she was already quite good at it. Rummage sales, church bazaars and Goodwill were all on our list to find "good bargains", we knew we could stretch our budgets and were not snobs at all!

Basically we shopped at discount and Army-Navy stores where I'd buy painter's pants, cotton t-shirts, knock off Polo shirts (which I wore with a nylon football belt), those silky fake Qiana shirts and seafoam green cords and I was styling! All with my own money, of course. We would occasionally get a big haul of hand-me-downs from a wealthier family we knew with three boys, and their taste was far more high end than mine, but I enjoyed all the fancy options!

I never cared about having the name brands but I do recall avoiding the knockoffs with similar symbols to Izod or Polo after someone at school called attention to something I was wearing. I think it was a (Dillards?) shirt with a knight on horseback that was supposed to look like the Polo icon.

In the 1970's when I was in Elementary School the black kids would look at my sneakers and say- YA'LL WEARIN SKIPPIES!

We were so poor in the 80s we had MN shorts instead of OP shorts!

Sweetie darling, you have no concept of my suffering. At my worst, I had to wear last season's Lacroix. They were dark times, darling.

R124 = Winona Ryder

[quote]I was a little lard ass in the 80's. So my mother bought me Sears "Toughskin" cords in the HUSKY sizes.

My husky-sized pants came from Robert Hall.

I think I see R125 in this photo. I think he’s the one second from the right!

We were lower middle class, so not poor but earth contentious which is why mother insisted instead of cool tennis shoes, we wore dorky Earth Shoes! For those of you too young to know what they were, picture a clunky work shoe where the sole is lower than the front tip of toes. Like a reverse high heels, the theory was it would stretch out your Achilles tendon for better foot health.

As the oldest child of four, I knew not to ask for name brand clothes or shoes. I'll never forget the summer before my 9th grade year, we were at the outlet mall and there was a clearance sale on an in-house store brand called 'Saturday'. I asked my mum if I could pick out "high school clothes," and five pairs of shorts and five polos came to like $79. My mother told me at the cash register, "You better wear all these." They lasted me all of 9th and 10th grade.

I was my mother's dress up doll. She was buying me stuff from Bullocks Wilshire even when she had a minimum wage job as a laundress.

When she and my dad started making bank, I had a TON of clothes.

Not that I wasn't a walking fashion disaster. Money doesn't buy taste.

At least that's what middle class people say.

A cranberry polyester leisure suit with a white belt and shoes. I was 16. Everything I wore was a hand me down. Even my underwear. When I started making money I became a clothing addict and bought clothes just to have them. I spent a fortune on stuff I never wore. My closets were bursting at the seams. But it made me feel good.

omggg

The dreaded JCPenney fox shirt.

R112, I'm not sure what Pic-Way was, but my parents would get some shoes at Pic 'N Pay. All locations of those stores had a particular smell that is hard to describe but that is immediately recognizable.

I grew up upper middle class and I wore all the brands that I actually wanted to wear.

A lot of hand me downs from my cousin. They were rich, so the hand me downs were nice.

I really wanted a pair of Nikes when we moved to a new state because recess there was basically PE, you were always playing dodge ball or football or something and my cheap shoes skidded too much. My mom bought me a cheap pair of Nikes where one shoe was faded because it had been the display shoe sitting in the window. Had to wear those for three years until they were a size too small.

At one point mom went on a sewing spree and made me a pair of white polyester bellbottoms. It was 1986. Thank god I wore them on Halloween and they genuinely got stuck in my bike chain, and I told her to just convert them to shorts, thinking I'd wear them around the house when I was told to fix everything in the summer as I usually was, but she got pissy and threw them away along with an Oxford shirt she'd sewn herself that was actually really nice.

When I was a senior I didn't have a coat (they'd donated my previous coat and then never bought me a new one) so borrowed a friend's hoodie one day. Finally I dug out my old black windbreaker from junior high and rolled up the sleeves so no one knew it was too small for me, and my band teacher made fun of me for a week, saying I'd faked not having a coat earlier just for sympathy.

By the end of high school my parents kicked me out (a blessing in disguise) and a year later they were going on long vacations; turned out, we hadn't been poor at all, they had thousands upon thousands in their bank accounts.

I went to Catholic school. We wore shirts, ties, dress pants and sweaters or sports jackets. We wore shoes, sneakers were only for gym class.

Later, my mom bought me suits from the old Spiegel Catalogs. It was the late 1970s....those were the days.

R138 yes that fucking cheap logo. I wore those too. But my school district was completely working class so very few kids wore higher cost clothes or middle class trendy brands

I’m tall and when I was 12 I literally shot up a 9 inches overnight. My parents wouldn’t buy me new pants and sent me to school in bell bottoms that were up to my ankles. Even the teachers made fun of me. As silly as it may sound I never got over it and I really resented them for not buying me new clothes. Moving forward they bought pants that were too long and I rolled them up until I grew into them. PS. We weren’t poor. Not rich but not poor. They were just cheap.

Buster Brown shoes. I always had a dress pair and an "indoor" school pair.

All I remember from the 80s were those terrible nylon tracksuits everyone was wearing in bright neon colors.

R145, I had crazy growth spurts in high school, I would put on jeans that fit me the day before and they would be too short the next day. Large cuffs on jeans actually were fashionable when I was in middle school and high school because we were all going through it. I went from a 30 to 36 inseam.

When they recently started showing men’s pants a little bit shorter to show a bit of ankle I took a hard pass, still sensitive about pants being too short.

Ugh. I went through this. Very late 70’s. We had just moved from Texas to Pennsylvania in the middle of the school year 6th grade. We were suddenly strapped for money because of my dad’s transfer and my mom took us out to get new school clothes at K-Mart. I though nothing of it until I arrived at school the next day and was CRUCIFIED by everyone who instantly spotted my Traxx shoes and mocked and mocked. It was epic. Even some of the teachers pointed them out. I felt like Carrie White. All on my first day of school as the new kid in a whole different part of the country for the first time. When I told my parents they insisted it would build character and my father lectured me on peer pressure and they were so proud. I don’t think they realized how twisted and relentless it was. I was the only kid in school with them. The giant logo on the side of each as I walked down the hall. Non-stop teasing for days. I think we reached some ultimatum where I wore my old crummy sneakers with holes instead. So much better. There’s valuable lessons to teach your kids, and then there’s just awful shit you shouldn’t expose them to. There’s a line.

I grew up in the country and we all dressed like poor kids even if we had money. (My father was the respected surgeon in town). My father had gone to Prep school and he loved the idea of uniforms for children so that little assholes couldn't play the 'brand name game'.

What are shoes?

Does anyone remember Penguin polo shirts? My grandpa wore them. Seems like they predated Ralph Lauren, Izod, etc. They (Penguin shirts) seem cool to me.

Cheap Whore Fashion Crawl:

Hills

Zayre

Ames/Murphy's Mart

Gabriel Brothers aka Gabes

Value City aka VC Boutique

Blair Outlet

Love them R152-

They had a resurgence in 2004-2008 or so...

The guy on The OC wore them-

I was in grade school during the Brady Bunch Era and almost everything we wore came from Sears. I do remember often walking down the aisle of maybe Korvettes trying on a new pair of sneakers pulled from a big bin, and self-consciously dragging the other shoe behind me since they were bound together into pairs. The one time my mom bought bating suits for my sisters from Kmart they literally dissolved from the pool chlorine before the end of July, so we were mostly spared the really cheap stuff (but not the really ugly stuff). While I know shopping in the Husky aisle would be embarrassing, so was the Slim aisle - Sears kindly provided two ways for young boys to not feel normal. Where there similar "size ghettos" in the girls department?

We did indeed dress up for Picture Day with something nice usually not worn to school, with particular stress placed on what your hair was doing all morning; but In those days most kids didn't wear denim and t-shirts to school even day, and in the early 70s plenary of girls did often wear skirts/dresses with tights. Guys wore polyester blend Tough Skins jeans with the pre-reinforced knees but they came in lots of solid colors, and, unfortunately my mom's favorite choice - ungodly 70's color combinations of PLAD -- dark brown, mustard & sky blue; hunter green, navy & white; red white & blue; etc, etc -- my mom loved them and I usually wore pullover type shirts with wide horizontal stripes or mock turtle necks and long sleeves that "coordinated" with one of the many colors in my pants. It was pretty awful.

I was a geeky, skinny, uncoordinated kid and the funny clothes didn't help my self-esteem (although my wardrobe was only slightly more heinous than the norm). Around 7th grade I finally protested against the motherfucking plad and then pretty much exclusively wore grey corduroy jeans from the Gap (back when they were just basically a Levis store)- I didn't think I was cool enough to wear "dungarees" till late in high school, but by then I was in a Catholic school with a dress code of jacket and (very wide) tie (but not a uniform) so for school it was a brown tweed or corduroy jacket and polyester flared "disco" pants.

We had a Buster Brown shoe store in my neighborhood. One year, I went to a private school and had to wear a uniform. I got my saddle shoes there. I left that school after one year...didn't like it.

[quote] omggg

Dyaltov right?

Dad died when I was five; mom had three kids to raise; she never remarried, but she got help from relatives. My aunt's boyfriend (longtime) paid off the house so we could live there and keep the house; my mom paid him back but he put the money she gave him each month into college savings accounts for my and my sibs.

the enormity of that generosity didn't hit me till adulthood.

we didn't have designer stuff; now, I buy mostly nautica and tommy and ralph...but the thing is it lasts forever.

What are "shoes"?

Darfur orphan, why are you posting the same thing you did at R151? Are the hunger pangs getting to your brain?

Branded as a "Husky" circa 1962 / never got over it....

We were so poor that we wore an Izod knockoff that used plastic thread on the logo and it used to rub my right nipple so badly that it chaffed and bled.

[quote] I remember one little asshole driving daddy's sports car to school, stepping out in his argyle sweater. I was there in my white jeans and my brother's Rolling Stones t-shirt and looked a damn mess in comparison.

Umm... you sound kinda hot, actually.

[quote] Nobody made fun of me because I was already known as a bully, albeit a strictly verbal one.

You also sound hot

I just perused this website and Sears version of Izod shirts were called the terrible "Braggin Dragon".

R158 Okay that made me sniffle. What an amazing man your Aunties boyfriend was.

[quote] I’m tall and when I was 12 I literally shot up a 9 inches overnight.

Wow, you sound hot, too.

You’re... of age now, right

I wore JC Penney's Fox and Hunt Club knockoffs.

[quote] it used to rub my right nipple so badly that it chaffed and bled.

Toughened your nipple didn't it?

Cugas, mentioned upthread, were the downmarket Nike knockoffs from Pic 'n Pay.

[quote] I was 12 I literally shot up a 9 inches overnight.

Impressive. Next time try to shoot it over your head or into your mouth.

Funny, when I was 12 I shot OUT 9 inches overnight

My best friend's family was as poor as my family. At one point, his family shopped at the flea market and bought him a pair of shoes from the brand "Mule". We were the poverty pair: me in Kmart Trax and him in flea market Mules.

I can't even find Mule brand tennis shoes online.

Barron is posting here? R167

It's a shame the so many parents spend their hard-earned money on designer clothing for their children at all. Kids grow out of them so fast. Why not just shop for them at Target until they're about 16?

We weren't poor, but my parents grew up during the depression, so they were VERY frugal. Sears was the high end, my mother loved to shop at Korvettes, Two Guys, and Woolworth's -- yes, clothes at Woolworth's.

We lived in a middle to upper-middle class suburb, so I was embarrassed sometimes. She did buy me a couple of nice things for high school.

I stopped resenting it, however -- they had enough bullets to pay for an ivy-league college. My mother recently passed away & left me $750k, so now I really respect the frugality. I've made more money than they, but am still cheap about many things. Expensive 'stuff' won't make you happy anyway.

I had to wear my grandmother's old silk stockings and flapper dresses when I was doing my corner display as a TransV hooker down on Sunset.

A ladyboi's gotta eat, but I hated those garter belts. The clips pinched.

R176 is rather disgusting.

I was made an earl of a fake place and told Daddy had to die before I got a dukedom.

Wasn't the next brand down from Izod/Lacoste "LeTigre"?? Remember that one with the tiger?

It was

Polo Ralph Lauren

Lacoste

Le Tigre..