Evidence I’m Aging: Top Shop, by Jenny Bahn

It’s my first day off in a few days and I decide that maybe I should spend some of the money I made.  Sometimes I willingly succumb to the wrath of the American Dream: the absolute and mindless consumption that occurs when you can’t possibly think of something better to do with your day than, well, spend cash.  Whitney told me Top Shop had some good shoes and maybe shoes are what I want today, so I go there.  What the hell.

I’ve been to the Top Shop in London.  It’s massive.  People come in and out of those doors with the same mass and intensity as the tube entrance just across the street.  Girls with cropped hair, girls in neon pink, girls with guys wearing neon pink.  It’s très hip, which usually rubs me as très offensive, but the New York experience proved to be quite informative.  What it informed me was that I am officially fucking old.

When I was growing up and learning how to dress myself (badly), my mom would make remarks like, “Good God, I used to wear that shit all the time”, or “I remember those.  Yuck.” and “That’s coming back?  What the hell for?”  I never fully understood what she meant.  I mean, I caught that these were obvious references to her childhood pictures in some capacity, but my stuff was always so much cooler.

I’ve gone two decades without reliving any portion of my youth.  Big scrunchies, leopard snap bracelets, denim vests.  That streak ended today when I walked into the Top Shop in SoHo.  I walked in, looked around, and wondered when Ace of Base and The Counting Crows would come on the stereo.  Hello, 1992.  I’ve missed you.

While I appreciate the aesthetic, my gripe against it is largely just that it makes me feel relatively ancient.  Sixteen-year olds walk into this place and drool.  I walk in here and try to muffle the sobs of a girl approaching the cusp of thirty – not soon, but in due time.

I do have to give the Top Shop design team kudos for pulling off with exquisite detail the entire contents of my closet circa 2^nd grade.  Here’s what I managed to relive.

1.  “Crop tops are going to be really important this summer.”

Ah, I remember these.  My first was a white cotton shirt with an awkwardly thick collar and a yellow, thin-petaled sunflower on the front of it.  This was around the same time that I started liking boys and about the same time I realized that boys didn’t much care for me, even when my navel was in plain view.  I was always on the taller side of things and most of these boys came up to about the space between the top of my shorts and the bottom of my shirt.  Maybe they just felt strange being in such close proximity to my belly button that was a non-committal innie/outtie.

When I got just a little bit older I graduated to cropped tank tops in the summer, which allowed for a wicked hombre tan and elicited whistles from cars driving past.  I was only thirteen and, presuming the cat callers weren’t with their parents, they were at least sixteen years of age.  I was flattered at the time.  Now, I am thankful I didn’t get abducted and raped.  This thought makes me sure that I am slowly turning into my mother.

2.  Lace.  Lots and lots of lace.

While some lace makes me think of nearly dead old ladies and dining room tables that haven’t been used in fifty years, the proliferation of sexy stretch lace brings me back to the days when I used to participate in mandatory science fairs – occurring roughly around 1993, 1994, and 1995.

The year I took second place was for what I would like to now title “My Compost Trifecta.”  This, of course, was not the name I gave it when I was ten.  Ten year olds don’t know what a “trifecta” is, and if they did, they certainly weren’t in the LAUSD.  I can’t take full credit for the concept; I was spoon-fed the idea by my mother, an avid gardener and subsequent habitual composter.  In the first bin I had a combination of soil, plastic, and other non-biodegradables (obviously nothing happened here).  In the second I placed dry leaves and dirt (not the right combination).  In the third was a delicious concoction of banana peels, vegetable waste, dirt, grass…the works.  It was a potent and successful brew.  I accepted my paper award wearing a big grin and a long-sleeved, hunter green, stretch lace top paired, of course, with a Scottish plaid vest and giant jeans from the GAP.  I need to reorient myself with my inner elementary school stylist.  That shit was rad.

3.  Floral Print Denim

Now, while I cannot say that I owned Top Shop’s version of my past a la their present trend in skinny jeans, they did manage to combine a common print from any turtleneck I ever owned and silk screen it onto pale blue denim (also very 90s).  Turtlenecks remind me of mothers because only mothers would make their children wear them.  Kids are too irresponsible to keep track of an accessory like a fancy little scarf.  Turtlenecks fill the void between your bare neck and your mother’s paranoia.

4.  My Comments on General Styling

Flipping through the Top Shop Spring Summer 2010 catalogue, I notice a trend: I’d like to call it Excuse Me, WTF Are you Wearing? As I previously mentioned, there is some recessed part of me that would like to call upon my internal fashion compass of days long past.  I sense this urge was inspired by the looks I discovered within these pages.  It is a no-holds-barred, fashion smorgasbord where anything goes and matching or looking like an adult is strictly verboten.

But I took a step back after seeing what a supposed “blogger extraordinaire” came up with when given free license to play around.  Eek.  A plaid shirt underneath some terrifying summer printed jumpsuit.  A nubby, neon, tri-color, striped dress paired with lime green tights and red platforms that made me think of a lizard drowning in Neapolitan ice cream.  Swimsuits as “day wear.”  This list continues.

I’m all for creativity, but this shit looked literally insane.  Like what happens when a crazed lunatic finds him/herself in the closet of a child and goes hog wild.  Clothes!  Look at these wonderful clooootthhheeessss! [Insert insane laughter here]

5.  The Narrow, Ankle-Height, Low Heel Bootie

Okay, I succumbed to my own nostalgia on this one.  As I perused the shoe section, most of which I found entirely delightful, I noticed that I was drawn to this lovely gray suede bootie with a U-shape of elastic in the front (allowing for easy pulling on and off of said shoe).  I asked the man with a clipboard if it was possible they had this shoe in a 40.  They had a 41, which, as it turns out, might actually be my real shoe size.  Yikes.

As I stood admiring my big ass feet in the long mirror, I realized immediately why I liked these shoes.  Back in the third grade my brother was friends with one Tommy Nelson.  Tommy’s mom was Cathy, who I have to say was one hot babe.  Perhaps the pioneer of MILF-dom.  Anyway, when Cathy got bored with her shoes she would pass them down to me.  This was probably the only benefit of being a third grader with feet the size of a thirty-year-old: I got to be really ahead of my time.  While my friends were still wearing Puma kicks, I was rolling around in sage colored suede and black ankle booties.

And so today I bought them, attempting to relive my fashionable childhood.  When I got home and tried them on again, I consulted my friend Whitney and we both decided that perhaps the past should stay in the past.  Bummer.