PAGE 10 • GO! MAGAZINE
THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2021 • THE BULLETIN
cover story
LOOKING BACK — AND SOMETIMES
DOWN — AT TRENDS OF THE ’90S
BY DAVID JASPER • The Bulletin
O
ne must be careful dissing past trends because what goes around comes around. Mock the mock turtlenecks of the ’90s and you’ll make a
mockery of yourself when they come back into fashion. Nevertheless, here’s a look back at some fashions and other trends the ’90s unleashed on
the world.
SWEATER VESTS
For a few years in the mid-’90s, ev-
eryone in the U.S. seemed to have a big
stogie dangling from their mouths like a
world full of wannabe Rush Limbaughs.
SPICE GIRLS
of Deepak Chopra, a new religion of
sorts was born, replete with a soundtrack
by the likes of Yanni and Enya.
Giant jeans — Fun fact: JNCO jeans,
those oversized, floor-dusting denim
nightmares, made a comeback in 2017.
A year later, Maxim magazine, which
is pretty damned ‘90s itself, wrote, “We
may have a sign that ‘90s nostalgia is
over, like any passing trend. JNCO is go-
ing out of business and is liquidating all
of its inventory. The dream of the ‘90s is
dead, my dudes.” Rest in power, king.
LAD MAGS
Hey, speaking of wannabes, “I’ll tell
you what I want, what I really, really
want …” went the girl group’s
megahit “Wannabe,”
which makes me re-
ally — actually, it’s a
pretty good song.
BOY BANDS
“When Maxim arrived on U.S shores
in 1997, it immediately subverted any
platform ideas of taste, class, and
self-reflexive masculinity,” wrote
Paste Magazine in 2017. “It’s
almost disappointing how
well it worked.” Indeed.
DAVID DUCHOVNY
Speaking of
single-gender
music groups,
let’s see, there
was always the
pretty boy (for
ex., Justin Tim-
berlake), the trou-
ble-prone bad boy
with the punchable
face (Donnie Wahlberg),
the one with the overly groomed
facial hair (AJ McLean), the convention-
ally handsome one (Nick Lachey) and
an impossible-to-remember one (insert
name here, if you can think of him).
NEW AGE SPIRITUALISM
Yes, he went on
to more success as a
tragicomic writer/
ladies man on
“Californication,”
but thanks to “The
X-Files,” Duchovny
was ‘uuuuuge in the
‘90s. There was even a
1999 pop song by Bree Sharp
who begged of him, “David
Duchovny, why won’t you love me?”
SWING DANCING
Janice, that minor character on
“Friends,” wasn’t the only one saying
“Oh. My. God. Chandler Bing!” This
lame, milquetoast fashion choice seemed
to only make his sarcasm land harder.
CIGARS
Thanks works such as “The Celestine
Prophecy” and other books by the likes
While it was cool seeing Stray
Cat-strutter Brian Setzer’s second act,
there was something surreal about a
dance style of the 1940s having a resur-
gence more than half a century after its
heyday.
Virgin Records
INLINE SKATES
Not quite retro-cool like roller-
skates, and not as rad as skate-
boards, inline skates had
a very strong moment in
the ‘90s. There was even
an inline category of the
X-Games, another ‘90s in-
vention. But wait. “What’s
curious about the sport —
like the recent resurrection
of choker necklaces and high-
waist jeans — is that it may be
the new cool thing again,” wrote
outthereoutdoors.com in 2018. Still, go
to any public skatepark and you’ll pri-
marily see skateboards and scooters.
ADAM SANDLER
member whose career is still going pretty
strong with leading roles in
films such as 2019’s “Un-
cut Gems,” even if he’ll
never be a critic’s
darling. Sandler
could both act and
be fearlessly silly,
weird, etc., mak-
ing his early film
collaborations with
Tim Herlihy —
movies such as “Billy
Madison,” “Happy
Gilmore” and “The Wed-
ding Singer” special — if some-
times offensive by today’s standards. Oh
hell, they may have been offensive then
too, but kinda funny.
e e
A breakout “Saturday Night Live” cast
David Jasper: 541-383-0349,
djasper@bendbulletin.com