nineties

I love a good theme. As a kid, my birthday parties always had a theme with outfits, decorations, and even napkins to match. One time I had a 60’s themed party where all my friends wore poodle skirts and we danced around to the plethora of “Greatest Hits of the 60s” CDs we had. My sister and I were the only ones who knew every word to every song as well as the corresponding dance moves, but that was just fine with me. I was always happy to enlighten my friends to the finer points of music, while they always had to remind me who all the Spice Girls were. I had three CDs of ‘contemporary music’ growing up: Destiny’s Child, Christina Aguilera, and S Club 7. That was pretty much the extent of my knowledge of pop music until I got to high school and actually started listening to the radio and watching MTV. Then of course by the time I got to University, my generation’s collective nostalgia kicked in and I was brought up to speed on all the music I missed in my youth.

Flash forward a few more years and now my local bar has 90s night every Monday. I had been once or twice before, and while it is arguably some of the best music to dance to, the myriad of 19 year olds is slightly off-putting. Nothing makes you feel older than partying to a song with people who were barely alive when it first aired. L and I joked that one day we should go dressed up as 90 year old women.

This year my birthday fell on a Monday and our dream was finally realised. Of course our first stop was Value Village, where I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun trying on clothes. Every outfit was more hilarious than the last as we slowly morphed into our old lady personas: Doris and Bertie. Two classy broads who still know how to have a good time, as long as we’re in bed by 10.

We ended up finding our dresses, shoes, and purses all in our trip to Value Village. I already had the coat, knee highs, and broach in my collection while L picked up the gloves at the Vintage Fair. The next issue was figuring out our hair situation. We had tried on some wigs, but nothing seemed quite right. We ended up going with low buns and aged our locks with corn starch. Because we’re not professional makeup artists, and still wanted to look cute on my bday, we wore our regular nigh-out faces. I wear this lipstick all the time, but I love the way it looks with the gray hair even better. Perhaps my next look?

The best part of these outfits were how conducive they were to dancing. So obviously I brought out all my amazing old lady moves. Unfortunately not many of our fellow patrons understood our witty genius. Most of our conversations went like this:

Drunk 19 year old: Why are you dressed like that?
Us: It’s 90’s night!
Drunk 19 year old:
Us: We’re 90.
Drunk 19 year old:

I wish I had one of those “It’s my 90th Birthday!” buttons or something. Oh well, we still thought it was hilarious. Youth these days, amiright?