Back-to-School Shopping Was a Chance to Reinvent Yourself

Your new sneakers stayed in the box until school started.

You could take them out, try them on and walk around your bedroom. You could check them with your new jeans. But wearing them outside in August apparently defeated the purpose of buying them in August.

They were for school.

So they waited while you finished summer in your old pair, with the gray crease across the toes and a lace that kept losing its plastic tip.

By the night before the first day, you knew exactly what you were wearing. You probably knew long before that. There were plenty of things about September you couldn’t control. Your outfit seemed manageable.

Knowing What You Wanted Before You Got There

You didn’t arrive at the store hoping someone would explain what looked good.

You knew the JNCOs you wanted. You knew whether it was Sambas or shell-toe Adidas. You could find the right pair on a wall of sneakers before the salesperson finished asking what you were looking for.

You could spot Sambas or shell toes under a desk without seeing the rest of the person.

JNCOs were less subtle. The legs swallowed the shoes, and the back pockets looked capable of carrying a second pair of pants. The hems would eventually get wet, fray and pick up whatever was on the floor. In the store, that was still somebody else’s concern.

A Tommy flag mattered. So did a little moose. Your mother could hold up another shirt in the same color and call it the same thing. It wasn’t.

These preferences came from seeing actual people wearing the stuff. A kid a grade ahead. Someone at the skate park. The person whose outfit always looked right without seeming to require any effort.

You noticed more than you admitted. You could describe a pair of sneakers in detail while remembering almost nothing from the SparkNotes you skimmed for Of Mice and Men.

Not everyone wanted the widest jeans. A Gap hoodie with those three big letters across the chest and a pair of Levi’s could be exactly right.

Once you found your size, you took it to the fitting room. You wanted to see whether it looked as good on you as it did on the person who gave you the idea.

Your Mother Still Had Final Say

You pushed a couple of AND1 tees out of the way and sat down to try the jeans. Then you stepped out in the pair you actually wanted, trying to look casual about a socially important decision.

Your mother looked at the hems.

“You’re going to walk all over those.”

You explained that they were supposed to look like that. She considered this a problem with the pants rather than a useful explanation.

Your mother wasn’t concerned with uniting your colors. She wanted to know whether the shirt was on sale. She could find a perfectly good one two racks over.

“Nobody’s going to care.”

An extraordinary claim from someone who wouldn’t be looking down at them while cracking open a carton of chocolate milk.

You knew the difference between Airwalks and Vans, between JNCO and South Pole. Your friends could spot knockoff Doc Martens before you sat down. Your mother couldn’t. She really, really couldn’t. She took you to Bob’s or Burlington Coat Factory for a reason, and it wasn’t to pay extra for the right yellow stitching.

Your mother didn’t really need the cold metal foot measurer either. She was buying a size up anyway. You needed them for Tuesday, but apparently spring was part of the purchase too.

You walked toward the little mirror near the floor, checked how the jeans fell over them and tried not to look too pleased. Excessive enthusiasm might weaken your position.

Eventually, a box joined the bags. You carried it to the car yourself.

Saving the Good Clothes for September

At home, you kicked off your old sneakers, pulled the stuffing out of your new ones and threw the paper ball at your brother. You weren’t allowed to wear them outside yet, but you could see how they looked with your shorts.

They looked good. You turned sideways to make sure.

Then it all went away until school.

The waiting gave the clothes an importance they probably didn’t deserve. A shirt hanging untouched in the closet could remain the perfect shirt. You didn’t know yet whether it would feel strange in class, whether everyone else would wear something similar, or whether you’d spend the morning pulling at the collar.

For now, it was exactly what you wanted.

Your JanSport didn’t have pencil shavings in the seams yet. The suede bottom wasn’t dark from being dragged across the bus floor. You put the new Five Star notebooks inside, then took them out to look at them again.

The first page was almost too clean to use. You wrote your name at the top of the page, then wished you could take it back and do the last letter better.

A Trapper Keeper went into the bag too. You pulled the Velcro flap open just to hear it again.

The night before school, you laid the clothes out. The sneakers sat underneath, still clean enough to look slightly fake. You checked the outfit once more before bed.

The jeans could wait for cooler weather. You were wearing shorts. It was September, not January, and you intended to make that distinction clear for as long as possible.

The First-Day Outfit Still Matters

Back-to-school shopping can happen across a few stores and several deliveries now. Surveys show that families still buy clothes in department stores, discount stores and clothing shops, with online shopping among the most popular options. Summer sales can spread the purchases out instead of making everything depend on one afternoon.

Kids still care which pair goes into the cart. The first-day outfit matters, even when it arrives on the porch.

They can still spend the next week in their box.

On the first morning, you finally wore yours outside. Your shorts left the new sneakers in full view. The backpack sat a little stiffly on your shoulders.

Then you got to school.

Someone noticed the shoes. Or nobody mentioned them, which could be a relief after all the thought that went into them. You found a friend, compared schedules and started figuring out where to go.

By lunch, the outfit was getting through an ordinary school day. The sneakers went under the table. A notebook came out of the bag. You found somewhere to put your hands.

You were still you. But you liked the shoes.