FashBlog.com

by Christina VanGinkel

Paging through a magazine that featured clothing for young girls I noticed a pair of boots that got me instantly reminiscing about my teenage years. As I looked at the surrounding pages a bit closer and read the headlines of a few related articles, I realized that one of my favorite trends, Mod, is making a comeback! Well, Mod in the way I think of it anyways.

Big bold patterns, such as thick striped leggings, along with a solid color top and a snazzy hat to match, and boots that are to die for, instantly send me into a time warp of sorts. The boots are the most telltale part of the whole outfit. Worn over the pants so everyone sees the boots is necessary, and no hiding them beneath a pair of pants or jeans.

I still remember my all time favorite pair of boots. They had a matching jacket that hung in my closet until just a few short years ago, when on a cleaning binge I reluctantly gave them away. The boots and jacket were both black leather suede. The black was as black as black could be. No other color existed anywhere on either item. The boots came up over my calf to right below my knees. A zipper ran the whole length from top to bottom, and they had a heel that took me almost as long as I owned them to learn to walk in them. The jacket was made in the same black leather suede, and was lined in sateen. It weighed nearly as much as I did back then, and it had a snappy little wrap belt and hood.

I had spent my first real paycheck, a total of over one hundred dollars on the jacket alone, a fortune to me back then, hey, that is still a fortune to me. The boots were purchased the following paycheck, two weeks later, for nearly the same amount. Working as a waitress in a little diner, one town over from where I had moved with my mother and brother, I earned every dollar of that money through shear hard work. The owner was apt to leave after opening on the weekends, heading to the local bar for his morning drink, leaving me to both waitress and cook most weekends.

I swore I would never part with either the jacket or boots, and probably would not have if I had not been foolish enough to try on the jacket after nearly two decades of it hanging in the back of my spare room's closet. I now wish I had left them where they were, not that I would have ever worn them again, but as fashion goes, maybe a granddaughter down the line would have thought they were as cool as I once did.

I had been wearing both the boots and the jacket the first time I met my husband. I was new in his school that fall, and was standing by a row of lockers in my favorite garb, trying unsuccessfully to open the combination lock, when he came over to help. He told me years later that the boots were the first thing he noticed, and he knew I must be new, as nobody local would ever have worn such a getup. Mod, fun to wear, and you never know whom you might impress!