I can recall (barely) when I first started to care about what I wore. It was around the time when Barney & Friends debuted itself to the world. While slowly every preschool child in the United States had blank faces with fixated eyes glued to the television set before nap time, I was playing with G.I. Joes and Transformers with my friends. There are two key things to know. I was not in the United States at that time. I lived in Frankfurt (Germany), which that purple abomination took a long time to register on my radar. Secondly I was about ten years old so I was in a different demographic.
At that age I was more concerned about toys, cartoons and comic books but whenever the word cool or uncool rang in my ear I was in full attention. Being ridiculed is nothing to look forward to. I must have been sitting in class probably drawing rather than doing homework until a discussion about a not-so-cool purple dinosaur came up. This was the moment I was introduced to Barney. The exchange between several students about how dumb he was left a negative impression.
Maybe a few months after hearing the exchange about this mysterious purple dinosaur my mother gives me a brand new t-shirt. As you can probably guess it had flipping Barney's huge face plastered in the middle of the gray colored t-shirt. There was no way in heck was I going to wear that to school (it was only worn as a pajama shirt). Using my imagination of what might happen to me is the same time I started to be more aware of what I was wearing. Despite my awareness from indirect feedback of others it did not instantly make me fashionable or, I do dare say, trendy.
Fashionable and trendy, these are words I want to talk about later.
This was entertaining to read!
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