Trends evolve with every generation and something that looks cool today was a total “no” back then. Most trends we see now would have been strange or taboo years ago. For boomers, the latest fashionable trends are at odds with the way they were trained to dress. Below are 13 fashion trends that boomers believe are questionable and that they probably wouldn’t have worn at all if they were young.
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Lounge Pants as Outdoor Wear
Boomers were raised to believe that lounge pants were only for sitting around the house. To wear them in public, let alone out of doors, was just unimaginable. For them, it’s a little too casual and a little too relaxed for a night out, where jeans or other pants were the default.
Backpacks
Backpacks are functional, and in common use today, at least among college students and young professionals, but boomers tend to think of them as something that you wear to school. Back then, adults used briefcases or hand bags, so backpacks in the adult or professional context can seem too casual for them.
Athletic Wear Beyond Sports
Once upon a time, sportswear had a simple use – it was for exercise or sports. Today, people tend to wear workout clothes to run errands or visit friends, but for boomers, it remains “sportswear.” For Boomers, it’s strange to see people wearing sportswear for anything other than sports.
Yoga Pants Beyond Yoga Classes
Yoga pants are uber cool today, but for boomers, they were only good for exercise. Seeing people wearing them in the supermarket or even at dinner parties might be unsettling. It feels too casual, perhaps too revealing, to them, compared to the clothes they used to wear out.
Extremely Tight Pants on Men and Women
Close-fitting pants – jeans or leggings – are very popular today. But boomers still remember pants that were more fluid. Seeing such figure-flattering attire on men or women can be unfamiliar, and sometimes even a bit too daring to go out in public.
Intentionally Ripped or Cut Clothing
Ripped jeans are now fashionable, but for boomers, holes and tears meant that garments were old and dirty, not stylish. Buying items with deliberate rips can seem weird or even wasteful to them, since they grew up fixing ripped clothes instead of voluntarily wearing worn ones
Exposed Bra Straps
This trend to let the straps of a bra or underwear peek through might seem stylish now, but for boomers, underwear had to be invisible. For them, bare straps appear crude, even bad form, an indication of the differences they have in their understanding of modesty.
Mixing Work and Leisure Wear
Boomers recall a clean divide between professional attire and party wear. The idea of combining blazers with jeans, or a dress shirt with sneakers might feel eccentric to them. In their view, mixing professional and leisure looks messy and not what they remember from their more formal style.
Caps
Baseball caps are everywhere today. Yet for many boomers, it’s unprofessional to wear a cap when they’re not at sports or the outdoors. They remember a time when caps were worn at indoor events or at parties.
Athletic Shoes
Sneakers are commonplace, but boomers have memories of wearing them to the gym. Sneakers are just too casual for them, because their parents raised them in dress shoes for most non-sports events.
Short Skirts on Young Girls
Shirt skirts have always been in fashion, but today’s mini skirts for little girls are a little much for boomers. Skirts used to be longer in their time, especially if you’re a young girl, so mini-skirts might seem surprising or even unnatural.
Leggings as Pants
Leggings are now commonplace, usually as a substitute for pants. For boomers, however, they were tights or underwear, and not separate trousers. It is a bit too revealing to wear them plain, with no long shirt or dress on.
Source: Quora
Disclaimer – This list is solely the author’s opinion based on research and publicly available information.