I announced my intentions at the age of six and explained my flawless reasoning to my parents: when you’re an adult, you have to stop watching cartoons and start watching the news. Worse yet, when you become an adult, you don’t want to watch cartoons.

20 years later, I have yet to find the “Grown-up Switch” which makes me suddenly crave the steady gaze and fuzzy jawline of Wolf Blitzer in lieu of a good episode of Angry Beavers. No one has forced me to switch from Doug to Anderson Cooper.* Being an adult isn’t always fun – for instance, bills and having to make myself dinner – but it’s definitely not as miserable I expected when I was six.

Why am I sharing this anecdote? Yes, it’s more evidence of what an adorably precocious child I was, but there’s actually a point to this story: being an adult isn’t a joyless existence. It can be serious business, but it’s not a punishment.

Of course, you couldn’t tell that from looking at The Gap’s fall offerings.

Oh, The Gap. I’m pretty sure I have devoted more time and energy to making your brand work than you have. Sure, you made a feeble attempt at righting wrongs by firing neutral palette devotee Patrick Robinson, but looking at your fall line … it’s  completely what I would expect from the The Gap, and exactly why this is only the tenth The Gap entries on this blog. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Ooh, baggy tops, neutrals, and odd fabric choices. Color me shocked.

Aimless skirts.

Dresses that fill me with apathy.

I’m sick of this, The Gap. What is your problem? Why are you so desperate to maintain your stranglehold on mediocrity? It’s not even that your clothes are bad, they’re just uninteresting and better executed by every other retailer out there. This is particularly baffling given that you somehow manage to create the consistently amazing GapKids line.

Both these kids are way cooler than I will ever be. These girls were into Justin Bieber before he went corporate, and now they only listen to Richard Fleur, a 5 month old infant singer-songwriter because he’s not a sellout. They have more Hype on Lookbook.nu than you ever will. These girls look like super-fashionable street urchins. If you told me this was a still from the Disney Channel’s new show Olivia and D, a sitcom loosely based on Oliver!, I would believe you.

And it’s not all rugged street style. No, GapKids caters to both uptown and downtown girls.

How amazing is that trench? How crisp and clean is the outfit, without being fussy or overstyled? How perfect would this look be for fall?

And it’s wasted on a nine year old who will, by the end of the first day, have managed to cover the trench in glitter glue and playground.

Just so we’re clear, this is how The Gap expects their moms to dress:

Yes, a long-sleeve t-shirt layered – poorly, I might add – under a short-sleeved sweater. With pegged  jeggings, a floppy hat, and ankle boots. Thrilling. Flattering. Definitely not just something you’d wear to the corner store when you have a cold and need more Tylenol.

The Gap, stop doing this to yourself. Stop wasting time and energy on you crappy adult line. Give everyone at GapKids a pay raise, tinker with the proportions, and start selling adult sized versions of your GapKids line.

Of course, if you’re not going to bother getting your fit right (something you still suck at), don’t even bother. I’d rather continue to ignore your store than be consistently disappointed by cute but poorly cut clothes.

And warn your posh stepsister Banana Republic to stop snickering – I have some thoughts for her, too.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to see if it’s possible to get my hips surgically remodeled so I can fit into this skirt.

Partial list of GapKids clothes:
GapKids Corduroy Military Peacoat – $55
GapKids Ruffled Star Dress – $34.95
GapKids Engineer Short Boots – $45
GapKids Ruffle Trench Coat – $55
GapKids Jeweled Rosette Ballet Flats – $26.95
GapKids Allover Dot Corduroy Skirt – $23.96
GapKids Boucle Tiered Skirt – $49.95

*Unless Anderson Cooper is giggling about a poop joke. His giggle fit confirmed for me that Anderson and I should totally hang out and laugh at phrases like “Tight End” together. 

This left me at the mercy of confused Victoria’s Secret employees armed with tape measures and specialty stores run by terrifying Eastern European women I was probably distantly related to. The confused college students employed by Victoria’s Secret were useless. Once they had assaulted me with their tape measures, they were at a loss for what to do. Maybe they were shocked that I had actually taken them up on their almost manic “Do you want a free bra fitting?” Maybe their training never included what to do on the off chance that someone actually said yes. Instead, I would ask for a bra recommendation and receive a blank stare before being offered a box of sample bras – none of which would ever fit right, a fact that mystified all the Victoria’s Secret employees.

The specialty stores weren’t much better. Middle-aged women from the Soviet Bloc were a little rougher with their measurements, a little brusquer as they threw open the curtains when I was in the middle of changing. They handed me giant bras, bras that could have been used for para-sailing. Bras that were primitive ancestors of the bullet bra. Truly hideous old woman bras.

Artist rendering of my trip to the specialty bra store.

Terrified but unwilling to spend $70 on something that looked like it could have served as a temporary shelter in the event of a sudden downpour, I asked if they had anything with straps less than three inches wide. “No,” the woman said (who was shorter than I am, but strong like bear). “With your size, this is all there is.”

I don’t remember how I escaped without buying anything. Eastern European bra saleswomen don’t take “no” for an answer. They just see it as a challenge. But somehow, I persevered and fled to the safety of  my car.

My inability to find a decent bra culminated in my wearing push-up bras for years without realizing it. As far as I knew, they were sufficiently supportive and just happened to have a lot of padding. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that I was happily donning push-up bras every day, but I grew up in Beverly Hills so I always thought that your boobs were supposed to be hiked up to your chin. It wasn’t until I was practically in college that I found a style of bra that worked for me – one that, miracle of miracles, didn’t have several inches of padding or straps as wide as a tank top.

In retrospect, I should have gone with the giant bras at the specialty store. I thought they were hideous, but I was so young and naïve.

Little did I know that ten years later, I could sew them to some jersey and resell them at ShopBop with a $100 markup.

Man, between this top and the bathmat skirt, I’m really questioning my life choices.

VPL Convexity Breaker Tank – $176

ps: Dear Jezebel commenter FauxPas, if you’re reading this, thanks for linking to me. For some reason Gawker hasn’t let me comment since the great hacking of 2011 (and has renamed me Surdeshna Hobbit, inexplicably). When I saw a bunch of readers coming from the article about Forever 21 suing a blogger, I had a moment of terror that maybe they were including me in the suit or something. Fortunately, they still don’t know the blog exists. But thanks for calling it hilarious – reading your comment and praise made my day.

Here’s a pair of ugly shoes for you. These shoes seem very aptly named, don’t they? They look like an art project I would have done in the second grade.

The second graders at Irregular Choice had a kind of cool basic idea: a fabric flower design on the heels is that perfectly quirky touch that a pair of ModCloth heels needs.

Unfortunately, these shoes fall victim to a common problem found in the artistic endeavors of the seven-and-under set: that if some is good, more is totally awesome.

I was familiar with modern artists like Pollack, so to me there was little craft in creating art. Truth be told, the difference between a Jackson Pollack and anything I created in my art class is that Pollack knew when to stop. I, on the other hand, did not. I was sure that the more things I put on an arts and crafts project, the better it would be. If a little glitter was good, covering the paper in glue and then pouring out the entire bottle of glitter obviously made it worthy of hanging in the Louvre. Garnish with a couple pipe cleaners and you were faced with a work so majestic, so perfect, that to look at it was to look at the face of God.

As a result, many of my crafts collapsed under their own weight, because construction paper is not meant to support a pint of glue and glitter.

Somehow, these shoes manage to support themselves. Although this is a feat of engineering, it’s not near impressive enough to forgive the fact that it looks like what would happen if you took “Bring Your Daughter to Work Day” a little too seriously.

ModCloth Irregular Choice Words Can’t Express Heel – $137.99

I, on the other hand, was focused solely on enjoying water that wasn’t a murky brown color and a beach free of discarded needles. Understandably, I was impatient whenever my mom would insist on reapplying my sunblock.

After several days of my squirming and huffing as she doused me in Coppertone, she finally resorted to just slathering my shoulders and sending me on my way. This resulted in my developing a tan on my arms that resembled the uneven sleeves of Peter Pan’s tunic.

For a young child with just a touch of obsessive compulsive disorder, this uneven tan was torture – and, odds are, cosmic punishment that the universe deals out only to children who are impatient with their parents.

Given that I am retelling this story on my blog, it’s obvious that this incident still has a strong impact on me. When I go to the beach, I’m careful to always apply an even coating of sunblock to my limbs, no matter how rushed I am. Nearly eighteen years later, I live in fear of reenacting this fateful tan.

With that in mind, it makes sense why the very idea of this swimsuit gives me hives.

Little diamond-shaped windows of tan running down your torso? Oh god. Why don’t you just leave my bed unmade and make me eat all my M&Ms in no particular order while you’re at it.

The longer I look at this swimsuit, the more familiar it becomes. I know I’ve seen it before … if only I could place it.

It would explain why the swimsuit is so expensive: shipping from Tatooine can be pricey.

Matthew Williamson Escape Twisted One Piece – $550

Likewise, I thought there was nothing cooler than dressing for a theme, especially for a holiday. I briefly mentioned this strange fixation in my Halloween post, although I didn’t explain the extent of my love for themed things. It went well beyond earrings; I also wanted socks or t-shirts that I could wear on holidays. My lack of green shamrock print socks taunted me. The t-shirts with candy hearts talking to each other mocked me from the Limited Too store window. As far as I was concerned, my holidays were deeply lacking.

I still don’t know how I came to the conclusion that the only way to celebrate a holiday was with occasion-specific clothing and accessories. I want to blame it on Claudia Kishi and Clarissa, but the truth is,I think it was just that the idea of wearing normal clothes on a holiday was  unfathomable to me. After all, it was a holiday. It wasn’t a normalday, or an everyday. It was a special day. The cafeteria would be decorated and lunch would be themed. Maybe we’d have a special assembly and get to skip P.E. When the Rite Aid changes its seasonal displays, proper celebration is warranted.

Had some evil person shown this to little nine year old Amanda, she would have desperately begged her mother for this dress.

My mom always had the good sense to not indulge me when it came to this sort of thing. At the time, I thought it was horribly cruel. In retrospect, I’m really grateful that my mom spared me from what would have been many terrible fashion choices that would one day find their way to Facebook.

Worse, had I worn this I would have been an accomplice in the desecration of the American flag. Yes, it’s technically not against the law to wear or misuse the American flag, but in the 24 hour news cycle, all it takes is one incriminating photo of a nine year old in coke bottle glasses wearing American flag overalls with red and blue coordinating socks … it’s all anyone would talk about.

I’ve worked so hard to lead a scandal-free life. I haven’t invested with corrupt energy corporations, I’ve never solicited men in public restrooms, I haven’t coerced an intern – hell, I have yet to inhale. Sure, it would have been a childhood indiscretion, but a political misstep like that could prove to be costly. What would have become of my illustrious political career?

Wait, all three of them have worn the American flag as clothes or desecrated it in some way, and they’re still respected in the political arena?

Quick, fetch me my AmEx. I’ve got some childhood dreams I need to fulfill.

From left to right: Governor Sarah Palin, Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, Guidette and Future Secretary of State Nicole Polizzi

TopShop USA Print Dungaree Dress – $95

I still remember the night I got my American Girl doll: it was Hanukkah, I was ten, and my parents gave me a Felicity doll. Much like when I got my dog at the tender age of six, I started hyperventilating from sheer excitement. I promptly ran off to my room so as to gaze upon her pristine visage and plan all the accessories I would buy with my $2 a week allowance.

I carried that doll on every family trip. I dressed her up, changed her clothes, put out her tea set. I don’t actually think I played with her, but as far as I was concerned, she wasn’t for playing. She was too nice of a doll to risk damaging through everyday play. A few years later, my grandmother gave me a custom American Girl  doll made to look like me. She was given the same treatment, although not afforded quite the same reverence that Felicity received. After all, she was made by American Girl, but she wasn’t one of the American Girl dolls.

This is all a long preamble leading up to a discovery I made the other day: the new 2011 “American Girl of the Year.”

To explain: every year, American Girl now releases a special edition doll that is modern, because the executives at Mattel think that the only way a girl could ever be interested in a doll is if she is a contemporary. When eight year old girls became so narcissistic, I’m not sure, but it apparently has happened in the last ten years, presumably because of Y2K and added fluoride in the water supply. When I was a child, the idea of having a doll from 1776 was thrilling; now, apparently, if the doll doesn’t come with a functioning knowledge of the Disney afternoon lineup, they’re useless.

The point is, American Girl has expanded their modern girl line in recent years, and the “Girl of the Year” is part of this push. Here is the girl for 2011:

Meet Kanani, the whitest Hawaiian girl in the all the land.

Are you kidding, Mattel? You create a Pacific Islander doll – in a line that is definitely lacking in diverse characters – and you go with a blonde haired, green-eyed girl with a slight tan? Yeah, maybe I’m kind of bitter because you’re discontinuing the Felicity line. And of course it’s a little bothersome that it’s taken you 20+ years to break down the religious barrier and get a Jewish doll in the mix (whose story focuses on wanting to be an actress, rather than the far  more interesting story of Russian immigrants in the early 20th century). So I suppose I am carrying a little baggage with me as I write this post.

But really? You’ve finally managed to incorporate an African-American, a Latina, a Jew, and a Native American into the line, is it really so much to ask that you make this doll of the year … y’know, not just a blonde surfer with a tan?

Even if her stories make her a native Hawaiian – and yes, there are some Hawaiians who look like this – it doesn’t change the fact that you’re going with a lowest-common denominator here. Give the Youth of America™ some credit here. They’ve kept you in business this long, let them have genetic diversity amongst the dolls.

I will, however, redact this entire post if it turns out that Kanani’s father is a Vietnam vet who never could bring himself to return to the mainland, and instead settled in the tropics of Hawaii, where he runs a sugar cane plantation and grows an orchid maze. If that’s the case, I’m totally on board with this gripping examination into the psychological scars of war.

The thing is, for the life of me, I cannot remember why these things were valuable. All the kids at camp just inherently knew that this specific style of stationary was a hot commodity. I learned how to play Blackjack when I was 9 because we would gamble for each others stationary. I don’t know why the stationary with the cows in a Cadillac was valuable, but it was apparently worth more than the one with the dolphins playing in the surf. This is just something that we all knew, and I don’t know why we knew it.

It was the same with Pogs – I showed up at school one day and suddenly tubes of cardboard circles where standard-issue. If you didn’t have a stack of Pogs and a plastic Slammer, you were banished to the black widow-infested jungle gym (yes, the wooden jungle gym at my elementary school was infested with black widows).

The point is, if it was a fad in the mid-90s, I was on board.

That being said, nothing makes me feel older or more out of touch than Silly Bandz. I don’t get the point at all. When they’re on your wrist, they look like rubber bands, but when they’re not on your wrist they make different shapes … yay?

Seriously, why is this a thing? How did Silly Bandz become as omnipresent as they are? Are kids really so easy that all it takes to make a trend is a bag full of brightly colored rubber bands? It seems the answer is a resounding “yes.”

Man, it’s a good thing adults don’t fall for that kind of crap, right?

Oh my god, you guys! Marc Jacobs makes Silly Bandz! We totally need to get them, like, now! That way, when we wear them, everyone will know how cool we are for wearing Marc Jacobs Silly Bandz!

Even without the decorative name plates, you can definitely tell the difference between the Marc Jacobs Silly Bandz and these generic, non-designer Silly Bandz: Oh yeah. That’s $15 well spent.

Marc by Marc Jacobs Jelly Bracelet Set – $15

Normally, I like to respond to comments with my usual wit and nuance, but in this case, all I could muster was “Are they high at Forever 21?” Because, seriously, that’s the only explanation for why they thought a black lace bra on top of a white t-shirt was a reasonable thing to sell.

The website claims this is an “avant garde” look. “Avant garde” translates to “advanced guard” and is often used to describe someone cutting edge. If this look is cutting edge, then I was ahead of my time at the age of seven when I thought it would be totally awesome to play “grown ups” with my friend by putting her mom’s bras on over our clothes.

I also have a technical question about this top: do you wear a bra with it? Because I’d imagine that wouldn’t be particularly comfortable, but by the same token, can a bra on top of a shirt really offer that much support?

The one good thing I can say for this top is that it’s on sale for $4.99, which is a pretty good bargain for a white t-shirt and a bra with an underwire.

Either way, is this going to become a thing? Because I can deal with this if it’s an anomaly. But if it’s going to become a thing, I’m going to seriously start doubting the sanity of both designers and the wearers.

Unless the wearers are actually superheros. If they’re superheroes, it’s  acceptable.

I tried contacting him for his opinion on this potential trend, but Quailman was unavailable for comment.

Forever 21 Lingerie Tee Shirt – $4.99

The minute I got home, I searched the website for a picture so I could write about them. I couldn’t find them online. I figured that maybe it hadn’t gone onto the website yet, and if I waited a couple weeks, the overalls would turn up.

They never appeared.

I began to wonder if this was some fever dream; a fashion hallucination. Maybe a year in the bad clothing business is all I can take. Maybe it finally broke me, and for the rest of my life, I would have post-traumatic stress flashbacks to the Aclogalypse.

But then, as I was surfing Urban Outfitter’s website this morning, I found this.

It’s not direct evidence. It’s not the monster’s carcass. But it’s the bite on the wing of the plane, and that’s close enough for now.

The Gap’s overall dress was  not an isolated incident. It’s a movement. I can’t say for sure how it began, but my hunch is it went something like this:

Designer 1: Hey, remember when we convinced everyone that Hammer pants were a good idea?

Designer 2: Oh man, that was awesome. We should do something like that again.

Designer 1: Yeah, but what?

Designer 2: I don’t know … something retro, like the Hammer pants, but more juvenile. Something nostalgic.

Designer 1: Nostalgia – it’s delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, “nostalgia” literally means “the pain from an old wound.” It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It let’s us travel the way a child travels – around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved.

Designer 2: So, overalls?

Designer 1: That works. Let’s go celebrate with hookers and blow.

Fin.

And that’s (roughly) how this happened:

These are magical proportion overalls. From the front, they seem too big. But is it just me, or do these look almost comically small on her from behind? It looks like she stole them off a small child boy.

I can’t imagine that these would work wonders on anyone’s figure. I can see a pair of overalls being kind of spunky and adorable on one of those hipster girls who wear single earrings and those big New Wave hats. So, essentially, everyone on Lookbook.

But this trend isn’t solely targeted toward the handful of people around the globe who are so sartorially gifted that they can belt a garbage bag and make it look good. If it’s in America Eagle, that means they expect enough fresh-faced, absurdly happy teenagers to buy this.

And buy it they will. My only hope is that, in 20 years when their children see their yearbook pictures, they laugh hysterically and ask why their mom was dressed like a farmer. Then the children will hop in their hovercrafts and fly to the virtual mall to hang out with their robot friends. Because it’s the future, and as a society, we’ve moved beyond overalls and Hammer pants. Granted, we’ll all be wearing pointy dresses, but I think that’s a small price to pay for getting to walk our dogs on floating treadmills.

I’d apologize for how quickly this post got weird, but it’s hard for me to stay logical when we’re dealing with overalls. It’s one of my great failings in life.

Urban Outfitters BDG Cord Overalls – $68

True story: the year was 1994. I was at an all-girls camp on the east coast, and we had to send three letters a week home in order  to get Candy Canteen. My counselor confiscated my letters and refused to let me have my weekly sugar fix because – and I quote – “90210 is not a real zip code.”

I had to have the head of the camp show her my records as proof that yes, it was a real zip code.

I guess it’s fitting that the 90s have come back with a vengeance in the past year, just in time for such an iconic date. Walking into Wet Seal has become a surreal experience; much of their stock looks the same as when I first shopped there.

All it’s missing are some ripped tights and a pair of Docs. That would have been my dream outfit when I was 8.

Yup. Seeing them still fills me with a juvenile giddiness that I can only describe as “Oh my god, Snick is starting!”

The 90s are everywhere. It’s hard to escape the shoulder pads and high-waist pants that we all thought had been laid to rest with the advent of low-rise jeans and LFO’s anti-Chinese food diatribe, “Summer Girls.” But the 90s are back, and have been for a while. It’s a truth that must be accepted – the 90s are not just an era any more, they’re an industry.

Tell me you wouldn’t have seen this outfit on an extra in a “Blossom” episode. Pair it with a giant hat, and I think you’ve got a hell of a Halloween costume on your hands.

This 90s resurgence – because this is all about me – makes me feel old. Like, crazy old. The best movie ever made is 15 years old – which means that the movie is the same age as Tai. There are teenagers with drivers licenses who have never seen a map of the Soviet Union. I was in the car the other day alongside a 30-something year old guy who was blasting “August and Everything After” while his two kids played with their iPhones. Kelly Taylor became a teacher at West Beverly. When did we all grow up?

In truth, 90210 was a little before my time – I was born in 1985, so the trials and tribulations of the Walsh clan went over my head. That’s why, to me, what’s most off-putting about this 90s nostalgia is what I saw at Hot Topic the other day:

It was one thing when Busted Tees sold Beets t-shirts. But when a major retailer thinks there’s enough of a market for nostalgia gear – suddenly, I feel bad for rolling my eyes when my dad would hear Cream on the radio and say, “This really holds up. It sounds like it could have been made yesterday, doesn’t it?”

Sorry, Dad. I understand now. I’ll be saying the same thing about Toad the Wet Sprocket in five years.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go watch Clueless and Empire Records to console myself.

Side note: is it just me, or does Reptar kind of look like David Letterman?

Wet Seal Plaid Knit Dress – $16.99

Doc Martens – $124.95

Forever 21 Satin Rosy Skirt – $7.99

Hot Topic Doug Let It Beet T-shirt – $23

Hot Topic Rugrats Retpar Die Cut Backpack – $30

Hot Topic Salute Your Shorts Camp Anawanna Tee – $22