TEEN FASHION Image is everything

One teen said she spends $150 a month on clothes, 'but not every month.'
By CATHY SECKMAN
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
THREE RED-HAIRED cheerleaders went to the mall. Like an anthropologist studying a strange and fascinating subculture, I tagged along. Alicia Congo, 14, Laran Hyder, 15, and Kristen Reagan, 14, moved in like commandos on a search and rescue mission.
They had a pretty clear idea what they wanted and where they would find it. Teen fashion runs along strict lines, and one does not cross the lines lightly. Preppies dress in a certain way, and so do punks. Skaters, who seem to be anyone involved with extreme sports, have their particular style on which no one else intrudes. Outside the lines are "people who are just normal and comfortable. They don't care what they wear."
Preppies, however, care deeply. Fashion rules their lives, and their reason for caring is as simple as teenage angst: "Everyone wears this. We want to fit in. We don't want anyone to laugh at us."
They finance their wardrobes with part-time jobs, allowances, indulgent grandparents and some creative whining. "All I have to do," Alicia said, "is go, 'Dad, everyone else has it,' and he'll get it for me."
Laran estimates she might spend $150 a month on clothes, "but not every month."
Their major worries are fashion faux pas like butt-crack bangs, belts that are too big or being seen in the wrong store.
"Why aren't you going in that one?" I wanted to know. They'd passed what looked like the perfect teen store without so much as a sideways glance.
"That's a 'tweens store," they said dismissively. Heaven forbid they should be seen in a store frequented by the junior high set.
Knowing the rules
The girls treat fashion lines with respect. "We probably wouldn't buy clothes in here," Alicia explained carefully. "This is an extreme sports store. These are the kinds of clothes skateboarders wear, stretchy and comfortable."
"But your clothes are comfortable," I pointed out.
"There's a difference," Laran assured me. "You'll see when we get down to the more preppie stores."
"So ..." I floundered in teen fashion logic.
Alicia continued. "If we wore these kinds of clothes, skaters would laugh at us. We'd be posers."
"Oh." The light dawned. "You wouldn't want skaters to think you were pretending to be like them."
"Right!" she congratulated, touching a purple shirt. "Although I really like this top." She left it with some regret.
& quot;It's like going into a gothic store," Laran expounded. "If we walked into a store like that dressed in our clothes, they'd look at us like we were crazy."
Fine lines, indeed.
'I don't think so!'
These girls are surprisingly straight-laced about clothes they consider inappropriate. Their parents' values, it seems, have rubbed off.
"I sort of like this store," Laran said, passing another one. "But I don't want to look, you know, trashy."
Alicia held out a skimpy bustier. "Here's what my mom would say: 'Oh, my God, you would not wear that out of my house!'"
A few minutes later, Kristen took a dare and tried on an extremely brief pair of shorts. "This is the most hoochie thing I've ever tried on!" she cried, inching halfway out of a dressing room. "Look at these! I don't think so!" Later, she passed up a provocative jeans/sweater/jacket combination.
"Would your mother let you wear that?" the anthropologist wanted to know.
"No," she said, "Mom's pretty strict. She won't even let me get my belly button pierced. But I wouldn't wear this anyway. It's, like, too Christina Aguilera."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"Yes!" all three chorused. They didn't quite say "Duh!" but they wanted to.
"She's icky," was the consensus. "She portrays herself to guys really bad," they said with distasteful shudders.
At their favorite store, a dark place with thumping rock music and poster after poster of the same pouty, curly-haired hunk, the girls sighed with deep content. "This is the best place in the world," Laran said. "I love the way it smells."
& quot;You guys, come help me!" Kristen cried. She'd found a sale table of summer shirts. "Here, does this one look nice with my hair?"
They settled on matching T-shirts in different colors. "Let's wear these to school tomorrow," Laran decided. "We'll wear our hair really curly and have matching shirts from our favorite store."
"Do you do that?" I asked. "Dress alike?"
"All the time," Alicia said. "Oh, I feel so good now. I bought something."