Worst Fashions?

I found this book Worst Fashions: What we shouldn't have worn...but did at a used bookstore and just had to get it. It has lots of pictures of and commentary on what author Catherine Horwood consideres some of the worst fashions of the last forty to fifty years.

Of course, I didn't want this book in order to make fun of those poor benighted fools who wore such crazy clothing. Instead, I wanted the book because I was inspired by the pictures.

A few examples will suffice. Horwood condemns knickerbockers as "fine if you are a Royalist cavalier in the mid-seventeenth century, but less amusing if you are a women in the late twentieth century."


I beg to differ. I have wanted a pair of knickerbockers for months. I have yet to find a pair that fits or is actually appealing, but I truly do like the shape and the details.

Horwood also decries the sweater vest (on men and women) as silly-looking and embarrassing.


I, on the other hand, just bought myself a sweatervest at Target last night. I have always liked this look, even though I've not always executed it well.

Another look that she lambastes is batwing sleeves.


"Sadly often worn by women who could not cope with the clinched-in waists that the power shoulder outfits [of the 1980s] required," she writes, "they usually ended up looking as broad as they were tall." Ouch.

It is possible for pretty much any style to look bad if it's worn without a good sense of balance and proportion--and an equally good sense of when to flout the "rules"--but I don't like to think of a given style as a "worst fashion." In fact, there are very few styles she discusses in the book that didn't cause me to think, "Hmm...It might be fun to try that." Horwood condemns overalls (for men and women), patterned trousers, palazzo pants (which I love), skinny pants and jumpsuits (which I don't so much love for myself, but which other people wear well), knitted dresses, maxi dresses, bubble skirts, leggings and legwarmers, paisley and tartan. For me, this attitude of condemnation takes all the fun out of fashion. For me, fashion is not making fun of others (even if I don't personally like or enjoy their choices); fashion is freedom, experimentation, creativity. I'm prepared to look stupid occasionally for the sake of these things.

Horwood's book was an interesting find, but I will not recommend this book wholeheartedly. The judgmental and snarky tone was far too negative for me. I will, however, recommend looking at the pictures in this book for inspiration and ways to make old ideas new again.