The Great White Pants

Before I went to Gilford High, I had to wear a uniform every day. This was no hardship. Yes, it was ugly (blue/green plaid, green vest, white or navy shirt, blue or white knee socks) and by no means sexy, despite what music videos ten years later would lead some to believe.  The uniform meant one less social gaffe I could potentially make—with the uniform, it was next to impossible to wear the wrong thing. I say “next to” because the girls at my school were great at finding ways to bend or stretch whatever rules were imposed. We were allowed to shorten our skirts if they were too long, and I soon found out that “too long” was, by popular opinion, four inches above the knee. Once again, this was not to look more attractive, but to facilitate writing test answers on one’s thigh, particularly in history class, where we had a male teacher who, rumor had it, would be too timid to check. I never went through the trouble—it seemed easier just to study, and the courses at that school were laughably easy—but I did shorten my skirt. 

I had not attended secular school since seventh grade, when plaid culottes with Izod shirts and suspenders were the rage, so I had to get up to speed, and I had only two months to do it. That summer I read up on the fashion magazines: Glamour, and Mademoiselle, and--a gift subscription from my mother-- the now defunct Young Miss (shortened to YM soon after, for obvious reasons), and saved up a little money. Before school started, I took a trip down to the new “Limited” store at the Manchester mall and bought what I thought would be sure to propel me into the high school fashion elite:  two pairs of cotton harem pants. One was white and one was black (to go with everything, I reasoned.) The waist was wide-band elastic and the pants billowed out in the hips and legs only to taper back in at the cropped ankle What girl doesn’t want to wear a pair of giant, short pants on her first day at a new high school? 

I loved those pants so much. I don’t remember which shirt I wore the first day of high school, but I do remember that I wore the white pants, with a pair of white jazz shoes. Maybe I even wore a hat. Walking down the halls, I saw that most of the other kids wore jeans—just regular Levi’s, with t-shirts or sweatshirts. A few of the girls wore skirts and dresses, and there were some flashy shirts, but my white parachute pants stood out in a sea of denim.

My comment to my mother when I got home:  “I need jeans.”

I would like to say that I never wore the white harem pants again, but I am pretty sure they remained in regular rotation until college (I recall that they actually wore out).  I would also like to say that the white pants were my last fashion mistake, but then there were the floral granny dresses that made me look like an escapee from a polygamist compound, and the hot pink suede jacket with the shoulder pads. And the Doc Martens with plaid shirts (grunge was never intended for pear-shaped girls) and the bodysuits as tops. And (in college) black velvet hot pants. I am now slowly realizing that shopping at Forever 21 when you are 21 times 2 might not be the best idea, but I wore harem pants on my first day at a new high school, probably with jazz shoes and a fedora--the only place to go from there is up.