Everything that goes around really does come around, especially fashion. Bell bottoms, skinny leg jeans, hip huggers, mini-skirts. Some are worth recirculating, others are not.

Platform shoes had only a brief come back, thank heavens! They were stupid in the 70’s and even stupider 30 years later. Impossible to be graceful with a brick strapped to each foot, women stomped around like Clydesdales.  Those aren’t shoes, they’re weapons! If you have to commit a fashion faux pas with footwear go with socks and sandals – it might make you look like a priest but at least they’re safe and quiet.

Palazzo pants (wide leg pants) first made an appearance in the late 1960’s and were reminiscent of the wide leg cuffed slacks the avant-garde set wore in the 1920’s and 30’s. They give the overall appearance of an evening gown and are akin to wearing your bedroom drapes, and unless you walk with your legs wider apart than you typically would the excess material bunches up attractively just under your backside, giving the illusion you just filled your pants.

Belly tops – those skin tight waist hugging tops that end 2 inches above your navel are fine on anyone who is a size zero, but if you boast any kind of excess around your middle they are a frightening advertisement for a healthy appetite and its’ trademark muffin-top.

Ah, the ever popular mini skirt! Timeless and tiny, these get shorter with every generation. Sporting these means you cannot bend for water at a fountain or to retrieve a dropped item. In fact, you can’t bend at all, ever, because doing so would expose ¾ of your derriere. They invite catcalls, whistles, and a host of mouth-sucking sounds from men on the street, and they’re drafty, excessively so.

Leggings have made a comeback and unlike the older fabrics that had no give, leggings now stretch and move with you, thanks to spandex and other elastic materials. The downside is that they also ‘grow’ with you so it’s no longer easy to sense those excess pounds creeping on the way we used to when our clothing felt tight. To combat this designers have launched oversized shirts and sweaters to hide the multitude of growing sins.

Maybe I’m just conservative. I think people should dress for their size and their age but apparently good fashion sense is rarer than one might think. Just look around you. What possess some people to leave their homes looking the way they do? Do they not own a mirror? And if they do, what are they seeing in their reflection, cause it can’t be reality.

If you have a belly, belly tops are not for you. If you have a healthy rump, steer clear of palazzo pants unless you want to look a circus tent. And if you have to wear a mini skirt you’d better be under 18 years old and a size zero. And if you have no fashion sense, take heart, because no fashion sense is still better then bad fashion sense.

There’s nothing wrong with dressing to enhance your look – we all have beauty so go ahead and advertise. Vanity is a good thing. It just means you care about your appearance and we all have different ideas about what attractive is. I do however, think dressing suggestively, provocatively, or even for the shock effect, is a cry for attention, and the sad thing is that this kind of attention is generally pity, not the admiration or approval the wearer is seeking.