When looking back through old photos, I was shocked to find out just how fashionable I was when I was a tyke.

What I wouldn't give to have some of these outfits today.

In my size, of course.

   
Especially that last one. Because... damn.

Looking at old photos from the 1960's & 70's is always guaranteed fun times because of the insane mainstream fashions that were prevalent in the day. There wasn't a color or pattern too crazy to be used, and it's only now that we can look back and say "What the fuck was everybody thinking?

Here's just a few examples of the awesome couture du jour from my childhood...

Pretty deranged, right?

Except...

More and more while watching Project Runway I feel as though the stuff I was wearing back then was actually more fashion-forward than the ridiculous shit than some of the contestants seem to come up with. Last night's "Stilts Challenge" was no exception...

And then there are times while watching the show that I seriously think that Heidi Klum should just take out a gun and shoot the "designers" for the sake of all humanity. I mean, I'm no fashion expert, but holy shit...

   
Somewhere out there, Tim Gunn is weeping for the future...

Still looking through old photos I'm having scanned and running across all kinds of interesting stuff. The 1960's and 70's were an absolutely bizarre time for just about everything. Especially fashion. Nothing fascinated me more than all the insane clothes that everybody wore back then...

I honestly cannot tell if this Valentine's Day photo is cute... or just incredibly creepy. The blow-up dolphin certainly looks innocent enough, but his freaky smile is hiding something. Can you imagine the Stephen King moment of waking up in the middle of the night and seeing that thing staring back at you? =shudder= On the other hand, this is probably the most sane, rational clothing I ever wore in my early childhood, so it's hard for me to not to appreciate the photo itself. I can so totally rock stripes.

This is me dressed up in authentic Native American clothing, but adding a cowboy hat to make a fashion statement for peace and the acceptance of different cultures. Or cultural stereotypes... I haven't quite got that figured out. But hey, I'm a baby here... all I really care about is whether my diaper makes me look fat in this jumper... not whether the embroidered knife and tomahawk in my faux "Little Chief" belt are politically correct.

And here I am in stripes again... chilling like a Sears Catalog model. Originally I had a cigarette in my hand, but thought it best to Photoshop that out. Showing a two-year old smoking in the 1960's might have been perfectly acceptable, but today that's considered "wrong" for some reason. Shortly after this photo was taken, I decided to give up my pack-a-day Marlboro habit so I could put the money towards shoes.

How is it that pants like this were ever in style? I mean, I know it's 1975 here and so things are bound to look a little dated by today's fashion standards, but seriously... holy crap!

Probably more interesting to me here is not the clothes, but the toys. The Six Million Dollar Man doll was probably one of the coolest toys ever made. When you turned his head and pumped the button on his back, his bionic arm would ratchet up, allowing him to lift all kinds of things... including the plastic engine block they thoughtfully included in the package! He also had a bionic eye that you could use by looking through the hole in the back of his head... AND you could roll back the "skin" on his arm to reveal bionic circuitry which could be plugged into his "Bionic Transport and Repair Station" (shown, sold separately).

"The Magic Hat" toy was something else entirely. It was made of hard plastic (so you could never actually wear it) and had all kinds of secret compartments and nifty tricks you could do. And by "nifty tricks" I mean "crappy tricks that wouldn't fool anybody"... but don't tell my 9-year-old self that! In 1975, this was the most amazing toy ever! At least it would have been if it included a real rabbit to pull out of the hat... but the closest thing they had to offer was a rabbit scarf. Lame!

I'll spare you the photo of me and my brother in giant sombrerros. Sometimes Memory Lane can be a scary, scary place.