I am still trying to live down the embarrassment generated by the monstrous fashion eyesores my mother made me wear as a kid. Particularly grotesque outfits that stand out in my mind include: a black tracksuit with a jumper completely covered in multi-coloured bows, a hideous shirt and skirt set with panels of a black-and-white pattern and red and plastic jewelled buttons, a blue polka-dot pants and top set (my little sister had a bright pink version, which we wore together), a parachute tracksuit with fluoro pink and yellow stripes and a mustard-yellow and a magenta Sweathog (which I pronounced 'SweaTHog') tracksuit.
OK, I understand it was the early '90s - a time when stirrup pants, scrunchies, boofy fringes and stonewash jeans were the ultimate fashion statements -but my mother had no excuse. She would repeatedly buy me outfits that after the age of 8 I had enough common sense to reject, but no. It was either that, or I went naked. I had no choice.
Throughout my teens, the fashion nightmare continued. Not only at the hands of my parents, but the Catholic education system. Every winter schoolday I was required to don a grey, woolly jumper (a potato sack had more shape), shirt and tie, itchy blue tights and a heavy, long kilt. You'd think I'd give a sigh of relief when casual clothes day came along, but alas, no. Instead it filled me with dread. Yes, I would prefer to wear some ugly school uniform than the clothes my parents, whose fashion sense seemed stuck somewhere in the 13th century, bought me. It was bad enough having to wear 'Lynx' sneakers with my P.E uniform - as these items of footwear - the only status symbols us uniform-wearing students could wield - were pivotal in cementing your place on the social food chain (you can probably guess where I sat). But until I was of legal working age, I was doomed to this fashion purgatory called my childhood.
So while the scars of this trauma remain, having these ghastly moments of your childhood captured and preserved in time, then flashed about on lounge room walls and cabinets is just downright cruel and should really be some criminal offence of some sort. With my far from clean past in the fashion stakes, I myself have been the victim of the occasional titter or jibe when a friend, or even worse - boyfriend, catches a glance of a family portrait at my parents' home.
The worst thing is, I thought I'd left this trauma far behind me. I'd cleansed myself of my inner style-sabotaging demons and redeemed myself as someone that it's OK to be seen with. I'd been to fashion rehab, and reclaimed my mojo that my parents so cruelly squished. I thought I'd moved on. But now I find it's all coming back to haunt me.
Not that long ago, to my complete and utter horror, my mother told me, and my three siblings, that her only wish as an anniversary present was a family portrait of all four of us. WHY WOULD SHE DO THIS TO US?
Sites like this only deepen the fear:
Or in a way, it actually makes me feel a little better about my situation. I mean, at least my parents never made me do this:
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