Many things have changed since our parents went to school. Clothes are obviously one of the most dramatic changes. Even the teachers  see the difference between when they went to high school and now. Many clothes are getting shorter, causing harsh judgment for some teenagers. So while students today wear short shorts and tank tops, how does that compare to how parents and teachers dressed during their school days?

Girls struggle finding shorts that are considered dress code appropriate for school. Is there another time when people’s clothes were considered inappropriate? In the nineties, fashion conscious boys could not seem to keep their pants up, and all you saw were their briefs.  Today, most boys have learned to pull up their pants although some have not received the memo:  sagging pants are so nineties.

“No one really challenged it [dress code].  Shorts were not allowed and no tank tops or hats.” said Randy White, science teacher and Etowah graduate of 1981.

Even the shirts we wear have changed. Shirts girls wear today seem quite a bit tighter to show off the young ladies’ assets.  There was a time when girls did not focus on flaunting their physique. While vibrant colors reigned in the 80s, so did padded shoulders and oversized tees. Today boot socks are the norm, whereas in the eighties, it was all about the leg warmers.  You do not see many girls trying to pull those off today.

Rewind back another decade, and you find the opposite of today’s skinny jeans and pants. Flairs and bell-bottom pants reigned supreme in the 70s. For males, it was the jumpsuit and the ubiquitous “leisure suit,” white shoes, platform heels, and baseball tees.

The times are changing, and so are clothes. Imagine what fashions high schoolers will be rocking twenty years from now. While today we may look back and wonder, “Why would anyone wear that?,” years from now, there may be some teenager asking that question about our styles.  Just think:  our kids might be raiding our closets someday looking for what we wore in our day, so they can stand out during their throwback dress up day–when they celebrate 2017!