me and forever21

this past weekend, i took my daughter and her friend shopping for a new dress for the valentine's day dance at church. normally, when i take just annie shopping, we go to kohls or penney's and she'll find something very classic and we'll both be happy. she's got amazing classic taste, which is something she DID NOT get from me. i have clownsense. i am drawn to goofy clothing. i've had to retrain myself to buy classic. my poor mother tried so hard. i just didn't see the benefit of buying a WHITE SHIRT when i could get a funky floral shirt instead. now that i'm older, i understand my mother's position and even support it. annie on the other hand, came with classic fashion sense already installed, which makes me happy, seeing that she'll never make the fashion mistakes i did as a youth (and even into my adult years at time. sometimes i just can't help it...).

but annie's friend has ventured into other shopping stores. the "teen stores" as they call them. i have taken annie to aeropostale, she asked. but we've never been to the likes of delia's, abercrombie, american eagle, or forever 21. mostly because annie's never asked.

but this weekend, that all changed. we went to delia's. we found THE dress. she loved it. she loved almost everything in that store. the jeans are perfect there: reese, 3/4, short. the tops are humorous and stylish. her comment upon leaving? i think i'd like to come back here and shop again mom. all i could think was i'll never get her into christopher and banks again. ever.

then we went to forever21. summer fullerton had raved about their hair accessories, being cheap, yet fun. if you know me, you know i RARELY wear any sort of hair accessory, but since summer and i'd had this conversation, i'd been itching to go check the store out. ok, itching is a strong word. i was merely curious. back to the story at hand. we were on a mission. michelle had found a dress at delia's, but needed a little sweater to cover it up, seeing as it's february and the dress is made for a warm july evening. and the dance dress standards don't allow for sleeveless clothing... so we headed to forever21.

if you've never been to forever 21, it's definitely an assualt on the senses for any first time viewer. i'd been warned by michelle, but i still wasn't quite prepared for the event. the picture above, yah, that's seriously what you see there. it's like a semi-clean teenage girl's room. loud music blaring, people mulling around. there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the organization of the store. we were looking for a black little sweater. we split up and managed to cover the whole store, never once finding the perfect black little sweater. we found black sweaters with gold lamé running throughout, we found black sweaters with pink feathers on one shoulder, black sweaters with ruffles running down the front accompanied by glittery sequins, we found black sweaters with flowers appliqued all over the front. everything but a plain black little sweater. luckily, it ended happily, michelle found a green little sweater that closely matched the dress, and made her beam while wearing it. we figured close is close enough, especially when she was smiling that big while modeling it.

back to the post title. me and forever21. when we first walked in and started looking for the sweater, i told the girls that whatever i brought over to show them, they shouldn't feel bad about saying they didn't like it. i wasn't highly impressed by most of the clothing, it's cheap stuff and cheaply made doesn't endear me. i was just going to bring over every black sweater i could find, not just the ones i thought were cute. i didn't want them to think i had really tacky mom fashion sense. i can tell what's in style. i'm hip. snicker snicker. with that statement out there, i went a-hunting. it wasn't until i was over on the other side of the store, scouring the very unorganized racks that the thought hit me. forever21 is exactly the store i would have loved as a teen. there's a lot of crazy things in there. i loved crazy clothes. the more assymetrical and clashy, the more i loved it. i found it kind of humorous that i walked into this store and was immediately turned off, until i started looking around and realized i would have loved it 20 years ago.

to make the shopping trip even better? my daughter, miss classic, came to me with a pair of shoes that i would have purchased as a teen. they were only $5. i had to endulge.

maybe she got a little bit of my clownsense after all :)