Let it be known: I quit.

Friends, Family, strangers who may see me over the next 6 months and wonder at my choices, I need to make an announcement for all your benefit.
In the interest of not having to explain, and re-explain myself and my choices until the end of oh, probably December, I am now giving you advanced notice of my reasoning for my upcoming changes.

I received my "Fall Fashion Preview" from Victoria's Secret today. (I shop primarily at this online retailer, as one of my fashion mainstays.) In the catalogue were features loud garish prints, bootie-sandals, and a dismaying plethora of clothing that Jem and the Holograms would have been proud to sport in their heyday nearly 30 years ago. Yes; while the 80's have been trickling back in via the neon-clad Twihard teenybopper types and the lackadaisical-but-ever-so-orchestrated fashion toadies (read HIPSTERS) in their oversized hoodies and leggings; the trickle has become a flood and as I flipped through the glossy garish pages, I heard an eerie child's voice in the back of my head saying, "They're heeeeeeeeeeeeeere."

It needs to be known: I'm officially abstaining from being "fashionable" until this disturbing trend is over. I wear leggings, yes, but they're often bootcut and I only wear them when en route to or from the GYM. Same goes for spandex.
Tapered or GOD FORBID PEGGED JEANS will never touch my body. I have hips. I have an ass. I do not intend to make these otherwise fine features into a pear-shaped mommy-butt in the name of being "fashionable". Sorry.
They're called "mom jeans" for a reason, and I won't kowtow to the fashion gods who assume we've all finally thrown out the grossness we wore in the 80's, hoping in the same light that we'll now rush back out to replace them with their modern reincarnations. The term "vintage" can now be applied to bedazzled jean jackets and neon leggings? REALLY? I think that makes the items I recall as "vintage" feel bad about themselves on their 2nd hand clothing racks. I think it makes them cry.

So: All those who see and judge and wonder why, please note: I will continue to wear my hip-balancing bootcut jeans. They suit my body and I like how I look in them. I will not be wearing gold lame or bedazzled ANYTHING. Neon may make an appearance but only on my nails or pedicure. Leggings are for working out. Oversized square-shouldered jackets were stupid in the 80s, and they're stupid now. Know this. Women are women, we don't need to pretend we want to look like linebackers. Wear boots with heels, or wear sandals. Don't try to breed the two into a hybrid of ugly. Neon + animal print = trashy. Maybe if I were dancing around it for cash, but as I am I won't touch that trend w/a ten foot pole.
And finally: Jeans that are so "distressed" they have the holes premade for you. . .just buy yourself a bedazzler and use it to keep 'em from falling apart, k? Because that's something the fashion industry apparently hasn't thought of yet. Kill me. Just kill me. I am going to do my damndest not to look at people until this trend is over, because it really reinforces that people will buy ANYTHING and wear ANYTHING the media tells them is "good". (Pssst, it's not. It wasn't then, it ain't now. . .and there's never, ever, EVER been anything wrong with staying with the Classics. Classics=Classy.)

So know this. I am now an official conscientious objector the the fashion trends of the fall. I observe them, I am aware of them, and I wholeheartedly reject them. I have spoken.