#IWoreWhatNow with George at Asda*

I wore what now? Growing up my parents took a lot of photos, and I mean a lot. The amount of photo albums we have from my birth to my early teens (when I suddenly hated having my photo taken and not much has changed since!) is ridiculous and I dread to think how much money my parents spent on having photos developed from Click. However, it’s still so much fun to settle down with Little Miss and show her snaps from my childhood. We didn’t have much money growing up but we sure had fun!

One of the things I always consider there must be a massive difference in compared to now is child fashion.. or is there? I was born in 1988 and grew up mainly in the 1990s. I definitely made plenty of faux pas especially when it came to my early teen years when I could finally pick my own clothes! But what about those years where my mum was the one who shopped for me and in the very early years, even dressed me? Is there a huge difference compared to how I dress Little Miss these days? Shockingly no. In fact, Little Miss still even wears the same items of clothing my sister or I wore almost 25 years ago! And for those pieces that are long gone from my parents loft, you can still buy similar in stores today. Yes, I have a better idea of co-ordination than my mum had (she was a huge fan of pink and red together.. haha) but I still go for similar fabrics and patterns, and a lot of it is still available in stores today!

George at Asda have been running their #IWoreWhatNow campaign. The idea of the campaign is to compare current fashion trends for kids to what we used to wear in years gone by to see if it really was as embarrassing as we remember or actually ahead of it’s time. Little Miss and I have had so much fun recreating some photos from my childhood using clothes she’s inherited or we had in her wardrobe then matching it to similar pieces on George so your kiddies can dress like us to, clearly haha.

So we have the obligatory summer dress with shorts or leggings underneath. A very basic and timeless look that Little Miss wears all summer. At four she isn’t the best and sitting like a lady so something under her dress is so important and it looks like I behaved the same way as it’s a style my mum was also fond of! Dresses with flower patterns like the pink one I’m wearing and the little blue one LM has (which happened to be my sister’s, I think I loved mine so much I wore it until it fell apart!) are still hugely popular and the light weight cotton ones in bright colours are so easy to pick up in the summer. Even now the blue and bright pink is a popular colour combo, not just in the early 90s!

I apologise that one of these photos is blurry, Little Miss would not stand still. Now this is an outfit I remember personally hating. I hated that pearly pink cardigan with a passion even though my mum made it herself for me (because it’s what everyone did back then) but now I love it on Little Miss and she loves it too! For little girls this is really a timeless look given how many places you can find nautical striped dresses especially in Spring! My mum was well ahead of her time dressing me like this, although my purple bow headband (that was no doubt my idea) isn’t as cool as I probably thought. Even though the cardigan is probably about 25 years old, Little Miss’ dress is brand new. You can nearly copy my 1990s outfit down to the hairband with a similar striped dress and pink cardigan!

See, red and pink, my mum loved it. I however, cannot dress Little Miss in those two colours together so we’ve went for some retro spotty leggings which I swear I had an identical pair of. My mum loved to dress us in the exact same clothes, how very 90s. No individuality. But we did love those jumpers and I have no idea how one of them survived. The fact it’s so oversized on LM gives her a very 90s kid look and to be honest when she was at pre-school this was a common look for her. Leggings and a baggy t-shirt or sweater that I know I had a very similar wardrobe 25 odd years ago! And the Disney motif tops! They’re still going strong today, even Minnie is still a popular fixture in young girls fashion as are leggings, in fact leggings these days are bigger than ever!

Here we have some more ridiculous leggings and a cord jacket. My mum loved clothes that could be gender neutral which is rather big movement these days! Red was one of her favourite colours for this. I was often dressed in red and blue as a kid, and I find myself doing the same for Little Miss, just because she’s a girl she doesn’t need to be all in pink! Red coats and blue leggings are still popular today, as are bobble hats but they’re rarely as hideous and the one on my head in this photo, I bet at 2 I loved it!

More proof my sister and I spent way too much time dressed the same haha. I don’t even think I’d ever do that with my kids, and it’s maybe where my fiercely independent nature stemmed from! But this is another outfit I know I put Little Miss in especially in the winter which is why we’ve gone for a white t-shirt today as it’s warm. She does have cable knit jumpers though and they’re so easy to come by in the winter months! Patterned skirts are still a popular trend with kids, and even tartan to an extent! But my favourite is the novelty slippers! They were a staple every Christmas and it’s a tradition that I’ve continued with Little Miss and yes, she even wears them in the house over her tights!

Having had this walk down memory lane I definitely feel kid fashion trends haven’t changed as much as they have as an adult or maybe like everything 20 years on what I wore as a kid is back in fashion. Little Miss has had a velvet and taffeta Christmas party dress. She’s worn nautical and novelty and we have as many funky pairs of leggings as I had as a kid. She can wear clothes I wore as a kid and not look too out of place. Yes, a few years back I used to feel horrified at how my mum dressed me, but as a mum myself I now know she was going for comfort and practicality which is maybe why LM can still wear so many of the styles and even pieces I wore myself. Or maybe my mum’s taste in clothes really was way ahead of the times!