J. Crew: If It Came Back Today, Would You Wear It?

I have been wanting to do this kind of post for a really long time! :)

Hope you all enjoy it...

I have so many ANCIENT J. Crew catalogs, including a handful from (gulp) the '90s, and whenever I have a few moments, I peruse the older ones as part of nostalgia for my youth.

(My severely misguided sartorial youth, but we will see evidence of that a bit later.)

One day it occurred to me..."would I wear the outfit I am seeing in this old catalog--as styled--if J. Crew (or x company) issued it again?" Often the answer is "yes," especially with any J. Crew from 2003-2008, but in the catalogs from before then the answer is "OMG, no, please dear God, leave it there with Roxette and this hairstyle that Hugh Grant made popular."

I sometimes (sometimes) can find a piece or two that is redeeming, but they are definitely far and few between.

All of this may well be because I wore the originals non-ironically (crazy twenty-something hipsters are wearing oh so ironically, yikes) but some of these older catalog images give me the skeevies. LOL.

So, I ask you..."if it came back today, would you wear it?"

Source: Summer 1994 J. Crew Catalog.  I am specifically looking at the LONG prairie dress at the right, but go ahead and have fun with the shorts/top/plaid shirt combo on the left.  (And those shoes.  The fisherman sandals.  I confess, I had a few pair...and may have worn them to my college graduation.  At least I was an Anthropology major.)

Source: Summer 1994 J. Crew Catalog.  Long, merlot, flowy, and not one accessory.  Minimalism 90s at its best!

Source: Summer 1994 J. Crew catalog cover.  Very appealing cover (really)!  These are all male items, fwiw.

I had a WINTER version of the merlot dress...and because I was super-challenged style wise, I actually wore this in 1997.  I was really behind the times, clearly.  :)

Wow.  That dress is LONG.  And very much placing me firmly in the sister wife category. 

(So you all know, at this point I was working with a boatload of LDS--aka Mormon--co-workers at the House of Representatives.  They always ALWAYS thought I was a fellow LDS until I would bring in a HUGE steaming cup of coffee into the office, usually because of a night of wine drinking the evening before made me a bit bleary-eyed.  I am not even kidding you.  BTW, my LDS co-workers were always way more stylish than I...I definitely was always the most covered-up and the most blah.  Yeah, I know, me "queen of the print" was a big fan of the solids, from head to freaking toe.)

Okay this one is from 1994, so more in time with the actual catalog.  This was a Pier One dress and because it was LONG and covered-up and the pattern was fairly simple, I was all over it.  (And clearly all over the really dark lipstick, yet another trend from the 90s that I really think should just stay there.)

So it should be fairly obvious that I will go nowhere near this trend, ever EVER again.

You all have a great night! 

P.S. If you really want a LONG red dress, here's a potential candidate.  ;)