Nineties Cee, Glow-Up Edition

Zara vest (similar)
Sezane blouse (similar)
Mavi jeans (c/o)
Christian Louboutin heels
Looks Like Summer bag (similar)
RayBan sunglasses
& Other Stories earrings
Location: Manitoba Legislative Building – Winnipeg, Manitoba

I wore these jeans on the first day of eighth grade. Okay, not this exact pair – Mavi was kind enough to gift them to me this fall. But these jeans bear a striking resemblance to the pair I reached for on the morning of my first day at Ecole River Heights. The only thing these are missing is white contrast stitching which, I confess, I don’t miss.

I felt so sophisticated on the first day of eighth grade. I paired a blue and white baby tee from Mariposa – scored during an impromptu back-to-school shopping trip with my step-cousins, where we all found new shirts for five dollars – with my jeans. It was the late nineties. My ideas about sophistication were partly misinformed and partly adjusted to what I could access on my very limited budget. My arrival at school shattered all my illusions of sophistication. Standing in the hall with my new classmates, I immediately realised that I alone had missed the unwritten memo that the nineties uniform of a strappy tank top and flared jeans was the only acceptable outfit for the first day of school. I looked childish and out of place.

That day set the tone for most of the eighth grade, sadly. I spent most of the year with one friend, invisible until a more popular girl got into a fight with her friends, at which point she would be only too glad to bide her time with us until they took her back. All year long, I wore those wide-leg black jeans. I still loved them, even if no one else did. I didn’t win any prizes for being best-dressed that year, but at least I can say that my style was all my own.

The funny thing is, when I put these new Mavi jeans on, I immediately loved them just as much as I loved that old black pair from the late nineties. (They came from the juniors section at the now-defunct Sears, if I’m not mistaken.) This outfit feels like what I wish I could have worn on the first day of eighth grade. I would still have looked out of place, but I would have felt confident enough not to care. I know that because when I walk outside in Winnipeg in this outfit now, I still look out of place. My hometown is, now as ever, decidedly behind the curve when it comes to fashion trends. Skinny jeans remain de rigueur here. When I saw a girl in mom jeans on the street the other day, I almost asked her where she was from.

I’m not in eighth grade anymore, luckily. While I don’t aim to stand out based on my fashion choices, I don’t care a whit if I do. I wear what I like. And right now, what I like apparently looks a lot like what I liked in the late nineties.