Back-to-school shoppers choose loose comfort of ’70s clothes

BANGOR – The look is rumpled, crumpled, wrinkled and undone. Some say it’s retro, others call it vintage, yet anyone who remembers the back-to-school fashions popular in 1970 immediately will recognize what’s being touted as hot fashion this fall.

Loose-fitting hip-huggers with wide legs made of prewashed, prefaded, already crinkled denim are still the preferred pants of teenage shoppers of both sexes. Long-sleeved colored T-shirts bearing the corporate logos of “in” stores are the first choice of boys, while girls are grabbing up short-sleeved scoop-necked tops and peasant blouses in muted tones.

Most shoppers at the Bangor Mall on Labor Day, however, were looking to make only minor changes from last year’s look. Comfort is what teenagers said they were looking for, while parents sought durability, room for growth and outfits that conformed to school dress codes and didn’t reveal too much skin.

“My goal is to get them enough pants to get them through the first week of school,” said Lynne MacKenzie of Ellsworth as her daughter and a friend popped in and out of dressing rooms at the Weathervane. “I want them to go home happy with clothes we can both agree on.”

MacKenzie took her daughters Bailey MacKenzie, 12, and Morgan MacKenzie, 14, along with 12-year-old Jennifer Richter shopping Monday afternoon as cool air and cloudy skies announced that summer in Maine is over. Morgan is a freshman at Ellsworth High School and a soccer player. Bailey and Jennifer are seventh-graders at Ellsworth Middle School.

“They have a dress code,” said Lynne MacKenzie, “so we don’t want to buy any tops that show their midriff they can’t wear to school. Morgan has to dress up on days she has games, so she needs some pants that aren’t jeans. And [the girls are] short, so length is an issue.”

Michael Taylor, 21, of Sackville, New Brunswick, stopped to shop on his way back to school from his summer job at a camp in New York. A sophomore at Mount Allison University in Sackville, Taylor is admittedly more fashion-conscious than the Maine teenagers shopping Monday.

“I like the worn look,” he said as he checked out pre-wrinkled pants in Abercrombie & Fitch. “It’s a more rugged instead of high-class look. Anywhere in North America, you can pick your own style. There are certainly enough to choose from.”

The going-out-of-business sale at Ames department stores lured three University of Maine at Fort Kent students from their Aroostook County homes to the Airport Mall in Bangor. They said the long checkout lines did not deter them in their quest for bargains.

Nineteen-year-old twins Jeffrey and Jonathan Swallow of Oakfield bought necessities like shampoo, toothpaste, laundry soap and a Rubbermaid storage tote. Kathy Labrie, 21, of Fort Kent purchased a brown turtleneck sweater before the trio headed for the Bangor Mall to check out the sales there.

The lines at Staples also were long as students passed up sturdy “deluxe” three-ring binders for smaller, less expensive ones – often buying one for each subject. The big-ticket item on the back-to-school supply lists provided at the office supply store next to the Bangor Mall was the scientific calculator required for advanced math and science classes.

Two 14-year-old Belfast girls took a break from shopping for clothes inside the mall to sample a new kind of ice cream made of small round frozen balls the size of BB’s, called Dot ice cream available at a kiosk called “Dippin’ Dots.” Lila Maycock and Clare Loxterkamp, both freshmen at Belfast High School, bought a couple of outfits each, but agreed they are holding back before completing their fall wardrobes.

“We want to wait to see what people are wearing at the high school,” said Maycock. “Fashion changes a lot as the year goes on.”