New fashion is just old fashion with a pretty bow

Everyone falls for it, including me

Fashion blunders never go away. They always repeat themselves and return in a slightly revised way.

Last year I ripped on people who wore oversized sunglasses because it made them look like bugs. Now I own two pairs.

My style sense began young. My mom let me dress myself.

That was a mistake.

I remember a time I wore a wig to elementary school. The bus driver questioned me on my motives. I claimed it was real.

My mom let me walk out of the house like that. She always advised against what I was wearing but never really stopped me. She probably laughed at me as I walked down the driveway to the bus stop meeting up with the two normally dressed kids.

Later she told me she did the same thing when she was little. Why let me suffer?

Now that hair extensions are popular, I want them. Aren't extensions just the revised wig?

My mom let me walk out of the house with my jeans tucked into my tube socks. At least I can say I wasn't the only person at my school who did that.

I haven't seen people do that again, yet.

There was a time I wore oversized shirts with a belt squeezed around my mid-section on the outside of one of my dad's work T-shirts.

I look back on that and I gag a little. Just a little though, because that style is coming back and I like it. What is wrong with me?

There was the time I made my own hat … out of my own stretch pants.

Yikes. No one at my school did that.

I cut the legs off those floral print pants, stitched it shut and wore the waist band part on my head.

Again, what was I thinking?

Then there was the tomboy phase.

I remember being with my dad at a recycling center and the attendant asked him if his son would like some candy. This made me angry and my dad laughed and said, "yes."

Now I just copy what everyone else does. I am sticking with safety in numbers and I don't want to be confused with a boy.

If I ever had a kid and they wanted to wear a wig to school with pants on their head and their jeans tucked into their socks, cool. I would tell the kid they rock and send them on their way.

Except I would document it with photo and video footage. Then I'd laugh.

Candice Boutilier is the Columbia Basin Herald city and political reporter. She is also a fashion "example" for her coworkers.