Mildly forgotten '90s jewelry and accessories
Enter the "casual tiara" and lip gloss rings.
Welcome all ye worshipers of the Church of Claire’s. Gather round, lost disciples of Afterthoughts. Adonai, open our lips that our mouths may declare Limited Too’s glory. Let us pray for the forgotten accessorized moments of our millennial lives.
The Watch Ring
First, consider the mighty ring watch. Although ring watches had been around since the 1800s (apparently), someone decided to reintroduce them to teenage girls in the ‘90s as a wholly new concept. A watch…one could wear…on a finger?
($52.20 on Etsy, gross hairy finger not included)
Marketers had perhaps sensed an opportunity where tweens and teens had tired of their leather-strapped Disney watches and bam: RING WATCHES FOR ALL WHO ENTER THE LIMITED TOO! Thing was, the ring watch trend was fleeting because a) it is very uncomfortable to wear a bulky ring that does not allow you to fully close your fingers, and b) every time you washed your hands and didn’t take off your watch ring, you risked breaking the watch and therefore being left with just a ring.
BABY-G Watch
This abandonment of finger time pieces then allowed for something HUGE to disrupt the watch market. In lands the BABY-G, hitting the shelves of malls with the same gusto as a superhero landing.
The supposed selling points of this rugged watch was that it was “shock resistant” — meaning what, exactly? That it didn’t blink an eye when Abby died on Dawson’s Creek? But the BABY-G managed to capture a moment in American girlhood when things were teetering on a on a see-saw where one end was the girly innocence of Baby Spice and the other was hard slam down of your butt into a harsher, “young adult” world. A place where your wardrobe now included baseball tees and pants originally intended for various technical trades or archeologists.
(Downright incredible BABY-G ad on eBay)
Lip Gloss Rings
I’d like for a moment to return to the category of impractical rings, as the mid-’90s also provided us with the lip gloss ring — a way for you to constantly apply some shimmer to your lips (and even discreetly in math class). But ultimately useless after a month when the gloss was all gone. Also: Impossible to compete with Bonne Bell.
(Delia’s catalog via eBay.)
Nostalgia seekers will be happy to know that Claire’s still makes these. Even better, Anna Sui makes a lipstick ring — only $18.
Tiaras
I think it’s safe to blame Claire Danes and Drew Barrymore for beginning a special wave of princess/fairycore paraphernalia. After Romeo + Juliet and Ever After came the angel wings, the glitter, and what I like to call the “casual tiara” — a more demure hair accessory one could wear to school, as demonstrated here by my childhood BFF here. (I’m in the bucket hat.)
Lockets
Obligatory after watching A Little Princess. (To make up for the trauma of that movie.)
Necklaces From Those Books That Came With Necklaces
Lost every single one of them.
And last on our list for the mildly forgotten…
Holograms
This came during a time when we started thinking about a new millennium, and suddenly there was a profusion of tech-y, science-y things, including holograms which showed up on necklaces and watches. (Remember that collection from Fossil?)
($35 on Etsy)
And I have to include an honorable mention in holographic fashion category…who else had these hologram Airwalks? (When you tilted them they displayed holo-glitter.) I had two successive pairs, I loved them that much.
All I wanted in life was airwalks and only got them when the boy up the street gave me his old tattered pair to make me the happiest 9 year old on earth.