Yeah, right.

I laughed out loud while reading Rheta Grimsley Johnson’s column in the Saturday paper. She was talking about how fashion trends repeat themselves which seems to be leading us to a 1960’s remake style-wise.

Although I wasn’t actually present for the fashion show of the 60’s, having been born in 1966, I do remember several trends I lived through, some worse than others.

For my sixth Christmas, I received a pink polyester mini-dress and white, knee-high go-go boots. I was thrilled. I prissed off to school at Franklin Academy in Columbus after Christmas break just knowing that I was the cutest thing going. I’m still pretty convinced that I was. Time is gentle on a memory that way.

I wasn’t really in the bell-bottom set. By the time I was in junior high, we were working on a 50’s throwback with our jeans rolled up. I did have a really cool (I thought) pair of gladiator sandals with platform soles that laced up to the knee. Not the most comfortable shoes in the world, but you know what they say.

“Beauty is pain.”

My generation may not have been on the cutting edge of fashion but we had our moments. Living the small-town life in the South, it seemed that the NY and LA fashion trends either never really reached us or did so in a very watered down way. We should all be thankful for that.

However, there is one thing that Southern girls did better than anyone else in the 1980’s.

Hair.

Large hair.

I mean big, bad, Texas cheerleader hair!

We were pros.

Check this scenario. During junior high and high school, I got up to wash my hair every morning. I then blew my long, naturally wavy hair as straight as a stick and set it on hot rollers.

Lots of hot rollers.

Then the game really got serious.

I teased and back-combed, fluffed and styled until I was satisfied and shellacked it all together with enough hair spray to stop a mule train.

Ready to roll.

One of my favorite photos of Ruby Lee and I is one her mother, Miss Ruby, took outside her house one Sunday morning. We have on our obligatory 1983 flannel, plaid skirts and soft sweaters and are smiling sweetly for the camera before leaving for church.

But it’s the hair that stands out - literally.

Once she got all that hair in the camera frame, it's a wonder there was room for anything else.

When I got to college at Northeast, I pretty much let the fashion game go. I made a life decision to go with comfort. Jeans, tennis shoes and t-shirts ruled my life for the next several years.

During my years in Memphis and at Memphis State, I worked in food service and wore many uniforms. Most were of the khakis and white, button-down shirt variety, which leads me to a little aside.

As Southern women “do” hair better than anyone, so do Southern men “do” preppy.

Prep is timeless, classic and never goes out of style. I don’t care what they’re doing in Seattle, LA, NY, or anywhere else in the fashion world. You put a man in a pair of starched and pressed khakis, pin-point Oxford or soft-collar Polo and some type of loafer and you can take him anywhere and look good doing it.

Anyway, after leaving MSU (the blue and white one) and returning home, I entered the professional world of grown-up work.

But I kept the basic uniform.

In my closet at any given time, you will find cotton-blend, pleated pants. At least two black, three to four khaki, one or two white and a navy. When I buy summer Capri’s, the routine is the same. The pants are just shorter. It’s easy, I’m comfortable and ready to go from work to school to an interview to a ball game and anywhere in between.

Setting a trend

I debuted my latest fashion experiment to mixed reviews recently. It’s football season so I spend each Friday night on someone’s sideline. My basic football uniform in the early season is khaki shorts and a white or brightly colored t-shirt. That’s in hopes that the running back will see me on his way down the sideline and not plow directly into me and kill me on the spot. I know, it’s a dream, but it makes me feel better.

We’ve been experiencing a little rain lately but it’s still September and hot as ever. The fields are drenched and the sidelines are a mess.

What to do?

I’ll tell you what I did, in case you missed it.

I went straight down to Gann’s a purchased myself a pair of green, Lacrosse boots to the knee and paired them with my shorts and t-shirt uniform.

“You’re really going to wear that out in public?”

It’s either that or go barefoot in the mud as I don’t own a pair of shoes that will stand up to the sidelines right now.

(I have made a couple of barefoot excursions to the football field, but those are stories for another day.)

I have had several comments about my attire, most of them pretty positive about the common sense factor. One of the refs at a recent game offered to buy my boots from me. His shoes were a mess.

Hopefully, the rain has slacked off some and we can all dry out some, but I’m keeping my boots in the back of the Jeep just in case.

When the rest of the pack jumps on this fashion trend, just remember where you saw it first.

Lisa Voyles can be reached at 456-3771 or via email to editor@chickasawjournal.com.