For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 29, 2020

anything to be in the in-crowd

I believe the Body Odor shirt is a take-off on the B.U.M. Equipment shirts that were very popular at the time. By the way, welcome back to Candace, whom we have not seen in two years.

yeah, I bet they all have B.O.

Wow, look at Candace as a preteen. I’ve forgotten. Nice short walk down the memory lane.

I don’t wear B.O…. I come by it naturally.

The B.O. people pay Candace to shill to their target market!

Fads are more powerful than common sense when one is young. Sad are the one’s who still succumb in adulthood.

I remember when many people just HAD to have an Op (Ocean Pacific) shirt. They WERE very good quality shirts, but… https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f0/d0/b2/f0d0b2ab079b7b0e6af055d3f65c960f.jpg

Is wearing what everyone else is wearing just to fit in really that important? I ask that in all sincerity.

This is why a lot of parents don’t mind if schools go to a uniform.

I never gave in to fashion trends in high school. I liked my anime tees and jeans thank you very much.

Oy…flashback to 1989. Living in CT. Daughter HAD to have a Champion sweatshirt. Such a good kid who never asked for anything before, so I finally scraped up the money to get her one in October. We moved in January to NH and she got raised eyebrows for wearing NYC type “fancy” clothes. (CT was, at least then, generally a year ahead in trends due to the proximity to NYC) So we went to the thrift store and got her lots of flannel so she’d fit in. But she had the Champion for the next year when the trend hit. Go figure.

Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” comes to mind.

Things like this make me conclude “If I were a parent, my kids would hate me!”

Too bad Elizabeth does not understand she is the original and they the copies.

I’m going to date myself here. I remember being a teen and wanting a Members Only jacket, a ski jacket, Calvin Klein and Jordache jeans, and a pair of parachute pants. I got enough money one Christmas to buy 4 pairs of Calvins (they were $10 a pair at Meijers) and a pair of dark teal parachute pants. Never got the MO jacket, though I did get an awesome rabbit fur ski jacket and a black, fringed, leather jacket from my Oma.

Lynn’s Comments:

I loved coming up with the name Boston Original so I could use B.O. on all the clothes.

When I was in the 6th grade, the craze was the poncho. Every girl had to have one, my mother said NO! Not many girls ended up getting any, but a few of the spoiled brats sure did.

Ironic that you can often find good deals on upscale attire and “preppy clothes” such as polo shirts and khaki pants, whereas attire that is supposed to be for the lower echelons, such as blue jeans, halter tops, or those aforementioned T-shirts can cost an arm and a leg.

This is a Canadian public school. It focuses on critical issues, boys and what T-shirts are in. It avoids petty issues such as sports, art, math, literature, science, history, geography. Then again this strip is set in 1991, so it would be odd if the school was talking about the Gulf War or how the Soviet Union is dying; the Cold War is over and socialism lost.

Gag me with a stick. Oh wait, I did the same thing when all my friends had bell bottems.

Just wear it for a week or two without washing and any shirt can be a BO shirt. – B. O. Plenty

“just sweat on any old tshirt!

I refuse to wear a shirt, or anything for that matter, that already has BO. I am a bit of an LL Bean snob though.

Peer pressure. It’s a real thing. And it can be very ugly.

I always hated girls like that, and was happy to get out of high school!

This is probably deliberate, choosing a name that’s unlikely to be found IRL.

Reminds me of an episode of “Here’s Lucy.” Gale Gordon wore his old college letter jacket: Bullwinkle State.

My mom would buy me clothes that were “in” while I was in high school. So despite my complete indifference to such things, I was usually dressed in whatever was trendy at the time.

This is why there should be uniforms.

Stinky shirts?

My internship friend Ophelia Papalous favored Ocean Pacific.

“If your friends jumped off .Blank Blank Bridge Would You??” "

For a few years, Jax Fl had a store called Goof’s, where you could get clothing, mainly jeans, at great prices due to some minor flaw. Everyone in NE Fl shopped there, it was cool to have jeans from there. They’d sometimes include a Goof’s six inch ruler, very cute, highly coveted. I nabbed one, lol. Haven’t thought of that place in years. Miss it.

Just let St. Michael wear some of your shirts for a while, Liz… then they will definitely be “B.O.” shirts!!

Candace’s mother has a live-in-boyfriend named Luke. It’s around this time when “Luke the Puke” starts to take a very inappropriate interest in young Candace..

Never cared for any of that stuff. Bell bottoms? No thanks. My mom tried but I steadfastly refused to accede to whatever the current clothes were.

Sheep.

How about you wear what your teachers tell you to and what your parents buy for you? You don’t get a say in what you get to wear, at least not when John and Elly are paying for the clothes on your back. You want a faddish T-shirt, buy it with the money you earn.

Why would they want Body Odor shirts?