I can't imagine parents today putting themselves through so much undo stress to be trendy. It must be exhausting!
The 70's version is so memorable. We walked half a mile in the snow/ice to school in the winter. Sometimes I'd walk the opposite way to a friends house to get her first, then backtrack to go to school. No wonder I still love walking. At least it wasn't barefoot (Ha!) but I can remember using the plastic wonder bread bags as boot liners to keep our feet dry in the slush. The bus wouldn't pick us up because we "lived too close." Parents almost never drove their kids to school back then.
We used to collect soda glass bottles from around the neighborhood so we could trade them in for the deposit and have lunch/spending money. School lunch was marginally better than the bologna and cheese sandwich with yellow mustard. One of my friends mom was a lunch lady. Then she grew up and became one too - I didn't see that one coming.