Celebrating 40 Years

Celebrating 40 Years: 1990s

Words by Jess Cartner-Morley

Celebrating 40 Years at centre:mk.

The Nineties

Image: Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, and Courteney Cox at Golden Globe Awards in 1996; (Mirek Towski / Getty Images)

Friends is everyone’s guilty-pleasure favourite TV show. We wear high waisted jeans, slip dresses and trainers. The Spice Girls are on tour and Princess Diana is a fashion muse.

In the immortal words of Joey Tribbiani - could we be any more nineties, right now? Out of the four decades that centre:mk has been a part of fashion history, the nineties is the era that looks most on-trend.

Kate Moss and actor Johnny Depp leaving a party in 1994 in New York City; (Catherine McGann / Getty Images)

Fashion was just so much fun - in the nineties. Gianni Versace ruled fashion in a blaze of bling, Britney Spears was the pop princess of MTV in hair bunches and belly tops. It was fun - and it was comfortable, too. Supermodels partied in bias-cut spaghetti strap dresses - and the All Saints wore baggy combat trousers on Top of the Pops. (Hands up if you remember Top of the Pops…)

Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss attend the De Beers/Versace 'Diamonds are Forever' celebration at Syon House on June 09, 1999; (Dave Benett/Getty Images)

But the best part of a fashion revival is that second time around, we can swerve the parts that didn’t work. Take the Rachel haircut. Those shaggy layers looked so adorable on Jennifer Aniston that women all over the world hot-footed it to the salon for shaggy layers – but are we finally ready to admit that the Rachel never really worked unless you were surgically attached to your hotbrush and suited almost no-one except Jennifer Aniston anyway? I mean, I’ve got photos – the old kind, printed and faded, in a shoebox in a loft – of me with my wannabe-Rachel haircut, and frankly I’d rather show you my mugshot of a passport photo than have those see the light of day.

Drew Barrymore, wearing black leather jacket in 1990; (Time Life Pictures / Getty Images)

Some parts of fashion are better now than they were then. The Beckhams’ joint wardrobe, for instance, has come a long way since the days of sarongs and matching black leather. And with 1000s of brands, centre:mk is bigger and better than it was the first time it was awash with chokers, hankie hem tops and shrunken denim jackets.