Today, I’m a 42-year-old dad with four kids. I work a 9-5 job, ski on the weekends, camp in the summer, drive a Tacoma…you get the picture. I’m essentially a cliched version of the middle-class outdoorsy American who’s floating along with the bunch.
But I promise I was much cooler when I was in my teens in the 1990s. I was a skater kid at school, a fearless ski bum on the weekends, knew about and listened to all the “best” music (hip hop, punk, techno), and thought of myself as someone who hadn’t bought in but instead was helping to drive culture forward.
Clothing was also a big part of my identity. I was the 16-year-old who wore oversized pants (I once got sent home from school l for the day because my history teacher thought my pants were too baggy). My friends and I sported outdoor brands as everyday gear (Columbia, The North Face, etc.), and we loved thrifting vintage t-shirts and shoes.
I’m telling you all this, because if you look around—at the kids in your local high school, on the streets of any big city, across social media—you’ll see that many of these trends are now back in, especially…
