I had a lot of fun in the 90s. I had my first proper boyfriend, went to Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America, moved to Australia, bought a house, got married, had a wide range of hairstyles. But I didn't nail my fashion sense until about 2000 or maybe later. I spent a lot of time with little money working professionally, scraping by. I wanted to be taken seriously as a young tall blonde woman so dressed with that in mind.

I think very fondly of that time but not about my wardrobe.

I turned 16 early in '90 as well. Definitely the style moment I am most grateful for was that I could wear flannel and docs, and later a striped tee, baggy jeans and sneakers, to concerts and out dancing - and that was cool and attractive. I have wobbly ankles and would have had a really hard time doing all that dancing in heels.
In fact, left to my own devices I would happily revert to baggy jeans and sneakers every time, it's the look that feels most me.

Other aspects of the 90s were not that kind to me, for example, Club Monaco or Calvin Klein minimalism - not the kindest cuts for larger hourglasses.

Xtabay - That photo of Kurt with the baby bottle breaks my heart!

Hah Rachy, I recall the 90s as feeling very bleak after the vibrant, big, OTT, and colorful 80s stuff; felt like a huge swing in the other direction and I severely lamented that I was a decade off what was, to me, Super Big Fun Fashion.

Even though I spent ages 9-19 in the 90s, the 80s had a MUCH bigger impact on me. I don't really love nor hate 90s fashion. Like Una there are things I enjoy in all decades! And, just like now, back then I picked the bits that resonated with me and skipped the rest (or appropriated the things I didn't especially like as standard in some other lateral way, e.g. my flannels and work shirts were very colorful). I also kept seeing so many parallels with 90s fashion and 70s fashion at the time that I tended to incorporate "my version" as more in line with 70s style. Still consistent with that today, I guess!

The 90's marked my high school, college and uni years. I loved at uni you could walk into a charity shop and lay your hands in the most amazing 70's leather jackets and faux fur galore.

I loved Damon Albarn and Justine Frischman, Pulp, dance music, Brit pop and grunge.

Love your photos Diana!! They are very evocative of that time.

I have really enjoyed reading all the responses.

I am a 90's girl! It was the teenage years. Light jeans, plaid shirts and Docs. I am still wearing them now, just in different ways. I bought a pair of black knee high boots from Camper recently that are so 90's, it is funny. I will find a pic of them and post it later.

I was pregnant or breastfeeding during the 90s and I am sure I didn't think about fashion at all.

Aida, I can see that. I do have a sense of the 90s as being 'neo-con.' It was high flying actually, but plain in appearance, reigned in in terms of display and attitude - and for all the money that was rolling around...well, it was accounting tricks. A desperate attempt to revive, hold on (also reminds me of Rome). But that plainness, I feel it started in the 80s. Grunge was what I called punk out of uniform in the 80s. Same elements, but more drab in colours. The defeat of the late 70s settling in for good...

True about the alternative/punk clothing uni. But I feel like the punks were a lot more conscious of it (it was an Important Thing) and the alternative kiddos just didn't care (or certainly cared a lot less) -- of course that could've just been in the circles I was around. Either way both a bit of response to "A Lot", whether that's late 70s or late 80s.

I agree that's the story, Aida. Punks were conscious of 'the problem.' And they had fight in them. Early Gen-X I think also understood. But punks lost the battle, and little sib was dropped off beyond nihilism.

So...but that's why I'd rather go back to the 70s and 80s. I dislike the hazy stupor.

Anger with suggestion vs. anger with apathy?

Ja (!!)

I'm out of step from the 90s nostalgia because I was waving my first born off to university at the start of the decade. What struck me the most about his cohort, at least the ones in my uni classes, was the depressive nature of the punk rebellion--railing against The System but not being inspired to do anything except focus on individual angst. Punk style wasn't about looking for a new, or better way as much as it was just angry emotion directed at everything and everyone. The irony of seeing all my middle class students try to look like nihilists while enrolling in business programs so they could find high paying jobs struck me as ludicrous.

I think every generation rebels against the previous one, but what struck me the most about the 90s group was the grayness that seemed to permeate the era--in fashion and in spirit. So, no, not fond memories of that time.

Gaylene that's the feeling I got from a lot of alternative stuff, too. The punk I was most into raged AND offered the types of change they could see. Mainly the idea not just to question but to understand and then change. Because how would anything they're angry about change if nothing is done? EDIT: I suppose that even if some the bands themselves didn't expressly suggest solutions, it still encouraged me to develop that question-understand-change approach. Must be the optimistic scientist in me

Nihilist business grads hoping for 6-figures is an amusing image ^^

Well...this gets even more interesting. College was never an option for the original punks. But then you get into the growing disenfranchisement, where The System leaves out not only the poor but also starts showing the middle class the door. And the middle class comes down with an identity crisis. Everyone is half pretending they're still in the game, but they're not even in the stadium. Everyone *knows,* starting with Gen-x, the retirement plan is work until you drop dead, paying off those student loans.

The real irony was seeing punk/nihilism embraced by students coming from upper middle class backgrounds whose uni was funded by their doting parents as opposed to students from blue collar backgrounds who chose the trades and apprenticeship programs. Looking grungy took money--Doc Martins, leather jackets, and deliberately torn clothes were too expensive for the trades kids.

It's even stranger that it was these no-nonsense, Carhartt-wearing, trade students who ended up with six-figure incomes from owning their own businesses. At least the students who were in my classes in the late nineties were honest about being at university to make connections and get jobs. Cynical, but rather refreshing.

That's true about the 90s - $100 DMs. But I think kids were probably right in their despair: they were following the rules and knew it was a doomed venture. But so rude to kick the gift horse, so...

On a tangent, except for Bill Gates, it seems to me a blue collar is a leg up in the make your own big money lottery. You know how things WORK, if you're awake. A large salary is no competition for large profits. Also, on another tangent, I note that six figures is not enough to buy a house in my area these days. I think the phrase is, 'who moved my cheese?!' Lol.

I never felt like my cohorts in the 90s generation didn't care. I was involved in all sorts of activism in college, and we just failed to affect any change. The baby boom generation was at its prime, and we were a such a tiny youth contingent, we got knocked down at every turn. At some point, you learn to expect failure. So yeah, it was kind of a bleak/angry era, but it came from impotence and frustration rather than indifference.

And yet, there was joy there too. Fiddling while Rome burns, as rachylou said.

True story: I worked hard all through college to change the Native American mascot at my school. A lot of us did. All our efforts came to zilch until 2007, when the millennials finally got it done. Figures.

That's a good way to put it: impotence v. indifference.

For me the 90's were really the best and the worst of times.
I loved the era ( especially the early 90's )although it was a very difficult one personal wise.
Fashion related the early fashion liberated me from the shapes of the 80's that were not flattering for me.
Granted, grunge wasn't that flattering either but somehow I was more in the mood for it.