MAKE IT CUTE

She had to be. Growing up, she didn’t have the money to sate her love of fashion, so she made her own clothes. Classmates would sometimes poke fun at her avant-garde creations, but she didn’t care. She liked what she made and wore what she liked.

And though she didn’t pass on her sewing gene to my two sisters or me (bummer, I know), she did teach us everything she knew about fashion.

The first rule she taught us: Everything comes back into style. From skinny jeans to bell-bottoms and pencil skirts to skater skirts, you can bet that whatever you see in stores now, you’ll see again in 20 years.

That’s what makes digging through her closet so much fun. She’s held onto all her favorite pieces, knowing someday she’d pass them onto us when the trends came back into style.

A year or two ago when the Southwestern trend started heating up, I rummaged through her pile of vintage accessories. I saw a colorful beaded belt and asked her if I could borrow it.

“It’s yours,” she said. Good thing too. I don’t think I can go a week in the summer without wearing it. It goes with everything—and I mean everything—in my wardrobe. Red skinnies, blue pleated skirt, black sequin top—you get the picture.

Recently I was researching fashion pieces for a Girls’ Life article. I hit up my usual e-retailers, Urban Outfitters, Lulu’s and the like, when I found this belt on ASOS.

“Shut up,” I said out loud. “That’s the same belt my mom gave me!” Same pattern, same leather whip-stitching, same everything. I’ve seen vague reiterations of past trends on the runway and the racks. But this? This is a full-on replica 20 years later. I was ecstatic.

I called my mom and asked her if she still had a picture of her with the belt. She combed through every photo album, but couldn’t find one.

“That’s OK,” I said. “Send me the black and white photo of you on the fridge.” It doesn’t show most of her outfit, or that the jeans she was wearing were olive green.

But that’s what I like about it. Nothing about it says then or now, or in style or outdated. She looks timeless. More importantly, she looks fearless. Just as she does with anything she wears.

She didn’t stress it as much as her other rules, but she didn’t need to. Her beaming smile said it all: Confidence is what makes the outfit—not the latest trend, even if it’s so fab it comes back in style 20 years later. That’s what I’ll tell my daughter when it’s her turn to wear the belt. 

Get the updated belt here: ASOS Sead Bead Geo-Tribal Waist Belt, $35, asos.com

by Karmen Fox | 2/1/2016