Students Learn to Make the Correct Fashion Statements : Clothes: It’s got to be oversized, or bright, or a sportswear name brand to be in.
Wearing a hot-pink cotton T-shirt, flowered shorts and requisite high-top sneakers, eighth-grader Cori Velasco was ready for the first day of school. “I don’t want to look odd, like I don’t fit in,” the 13-year-old explained.
Perfectly coifed and coordinated in a flowered jumpsuit, shiny black patent leather shoes and sporting a Bart Simpson button on her purse, seventh-grader Virginia Sanchez echoed the sentiment: “I wore this outfit because it’s in.”
As schools opened all over the San Gabriel Valley last week, one thing was clear: Youngsters determined to make a fashion statement are reading from the same script.
Donning a brand-new oversized peach T-shirt, blue shorts and high tops, seventh-grader C. J. Muha said it all: “If you don’t look good, girls won’t like you.”
It was the first day back to school at Rio Hondo Elementary in the El Monte School District, and making the grade meant “fitting in” and “being liked,” and that, in turn, meant dressing right.
But fitting in can have its costs.
“It’s one more area where stress and strain is on youngsters at a very stressful time in their lives,” Rio Hondo Principal Armene Chavdarian said. “Kids want to be accepted, especially at the junior high level. Parents have to draw the line and teach them individual values so the whole emphasis isn’t on what other people think.”
As Marcia Rodgers, fashion editor for Seventeen magazine, put it: “At that age they’re not as much trend-setters as they are followers. . . . They all want to look like their friends.”
Among the popular fashions on schoolyards this year are long and short overalls and jumpsuits; denim and floral prints and neon colors in everything from shirts to shoelaces; patent leather shoes, and big, clunky (but cool) round-toed black shoes called Doc Maartens. The most important footwear--especially for boys--is sneakers: big-tongued sneakers, double-tongued sneakers and name-brand sneakers such as L.A. Gear and Nike’s Air Jordan.
Rodgers said the sporting world is one of the strongest influences in childrens’ fashion this year. “That’s where you get all the bright neon colors, oversized T-shirts, gym bags (used instead of backpacks to carry school books) and bike shorts,” she said.
Music is the other magnet. Doc Maartens are a favorite of London’s punk rockers, and high-top sneakers with the tongues flopping around are an imitation of the styles favored by rap musicians, Rodgers said. She added that when the weather cools, the hooded sweat suits often worn by rappers will become ubiquitous.
Still popular this year is any attire bearing the likeness of Bart Simpson, the beleaguered underachiever from the popular Fox television series, “The Simpsons.” At area schools last week, Bart was on T-shirts and buttons everywhere, both in his original form and in the bootleg version in which Bart and his family are depicted as being black.
“I like Bart,” said Anthony Merritt, 12, who started seventh grade at John Marshall Fundamental School in Pasadena wearing a Simpson bootleg T-shirt. “He’s funny and he’s cool.”
Topping off the first day’s fashion coiffures were “stacks,” where girls pile curls of hair on top of each other; “steps” or “fades,” where boys shave the backs and sides of their heads; “flattops,” similar to 1950s-era crew cuts, and “carved cuts,” in which everything from initials to intricate designs are shaved onto their scalps.
“I wanted to look right,” said Roddie Cobb, 13, who showed off his carved cut, sometimes called an Ethiopian crown cut because of elaborate symbols that resemble African art.
African culture influenced much of what young black students were wearing. Teen-age boys wore large wooden beads and “jungle shirts,” which are multicolored blouses resembling the dashikis worn in the 1960s. Girls wore pins, earrings and other jewelry in the shape of the African continent.
And although the yellow, green and red colors of the Ethiopian flag and red, black and green of the Pan-African movement were apparent everywhere, politics was not.
“It’s fashionable,” said Danyielle Odom, 13. “That’s all there is to it.”
Hoder is a frequent contributor to San Gabriel Valley View.
