Teen girls' wardrobe terminology: what do you call those things?

The first one you’re talking about might be a cropped hoodie, which come in many varying styles – but the short ones are all cropped.

The second thing you’re talking about just sounds like either black capris or knee-length leggings. The capris can be made of varying fabric, such as a Poly/rayon/spandex mix, and the leggings are typically always made of a cotton-spandex mix.

As for that particular hairstyle, spiky bun – again and again.

Spiky bun! If I had lived to be a hundred I never would have thought of that. My sons are older, they’re not daughters, and their girlfriends don’t dress like that, so I have no resources. Thank you.

I don’t think the layered tops subject is covered, though. There’s no hood, and the parts look distinctly separate. I tried looking them up on catalog sites but had no idea how to find them. The 17— and 18-year-olds in my community college class dress like that, but it’s bad enough sitting there with my graying hair and my old face, with a cast on my foot and that damnable cane, without turning and asking “What do you call that thing you’re wearing?”

[Edit] Damn. I can’t make that a hanging hyphen after the “17.” I hate those automatic formatting overrides. An em dash does not belong there. Looking stupid because I did something stupid is one thing, and being forced to look stupid by a piece of software that presumes to know what I meant is quite another.

The pants – capris? Singular, capri. Or jeggings (jeans leggings), but they normally are full-length. Most women’s fashion jeans nowadays have some spandex in them to make them “stretchy jeans”.

The tops – it depends on the tops they’re wearing. It’s just called “layering tops”, so if you were using camis, you would be layering camis, if you were using t-shirts, you would be layering t-shirts. You can layer a cami over a t-shirt.
This is a tank top. The straps are thicker than a cami. A cami is exactly the same, but with spaghetti straps instead, like this.

The hair – it’s called “messy”. The messy look can go with most up-dos. You can do it with buns, french twists, all of them. You can also buy fake hair that has been arranged messily if you don’t have the texture for a messy do. The toothed spring clip is called a claw. You gather the hair at the nape of the neck, twist as if to make a french twist, and then secure with the claw. I think I would describe it in a story as “she had secured her hair in a messy twist with rhinestone-studded claw, showcasing her hectic schedule and carefree ways” (of course, you can change the embellishment there). Spiky is actually more something you use when the person has used hair product, like wax, to create spikes instead of just being messy. If it looks like it was done in less than 30 seconds, it’s messy, if it looks like it took hours, it’s spiky.

Wow, @papayalily, those don’t look anything like my capris. Mine look like this and this. But yes, this is what I’m talking about.

For what it’s worth, even when I was a teen I knew more about restrictive clauses and dangling modifiers and figures of speech than I did about fashion. So—clueless Я us.

@Jeruba Then they don’t have a new name. Just black capris made out of leggings material.

Personally, I can’t fathom feeling comfortable enough to not want the little bit of mercy that the looser capris grant you.

@papayalily You can easily get spiky without any kind of hair product, though. Especially if one has a layered haircut, which most young women tend to have now, in one way or another, no matter what. I can do it easily with no product. However, I’ll agree that “messy” can work – but it brings more of a true mess (like knotted, uncombed, dirty, etc) to my mind than “spiky”. Pretty much though, it could be either or with that one.

@Jeruba A cropped vest? ?

And yeah, you’re talking about capri-leggings, then.

@DrasticDreamer, no, a cropped vest isn’t it. I don’t know why I can’t find pictures of what I’m talking about. Girls who dress like this are all over the place here in Northern California—campus, mall, street, everywhere. Maybe it’s a local fashion?

Claws, yeah, that’s it, @papayalily. I even have some and didn’t know what to call them.

@DrasticDreamer I think most spiky hairdos are either fake hair or insanely well-kept layered haircuts. Most layered haircuts change from spiky to messy after it’s been 2 weeks.
Messy
messy
messy
spiky

@papayalily I see the first two, but the second to last one I would definitely refer to as spiky, rather than messy.

I think most of the fashions today don’t really have new names, they’re just new (or “new”) ways of putting old cloths together.

For the shirts, if you’re talking about something like this, then they are just layering (tees, camis, tanks, even a button-up shirt… all can be worn this way.)

I like the layered t shirts, then you don’t have to wear a bra! Some of the other looks are not so good in mho. I bet someday these kids will look back on pics of themselves in these outfits and wonder, what the hell was I thinking!!! (as I often do when I look back at the monstrous bell bottoms, teased hair etc. that we thought was just so groovy)

@rooeytoo Psh. Speaking on behalf of the busty girls… there is no way in hell I could get away with not wearing a bra, layered shirts or not! :p

@augustlan – you know I always thought the perfect solution to breast size would be for them to be inflatable. Then when you wanted to go braless or do pole vaulting or run, you could deflate. But when you wanted to go out on the town and look voluptuous, you could pump them up! If there is a god and I ever get into its earshot, I am going to make that suggestion! ;-)

I would LOVE that. Make it so. :D

On the topic of the layered tops: I think the girls you’re seeing, @Jeruba, are just layering two tops which are of different lengths. I do the same thing occasionally; I have a few camisoles that are relatively long and which reach about to the top of my back jeans pockets. I don’t really know why I do it – the differing lengths, that is. I like to layer a stretchy cami under a t-shirt to minimize bra lines and (whether it works or not) little lumps and bumps.

It does come to mind that, if a woman is wearing black pants with a black top, a little peek of a cami in a contrasting colour at the hem of the “outer” top adds a little something to an outfit.
Recently I’ve seen long camis with a little lace trim around the hem, which would be visible when a t-shirt is worn on top… Again, I’m not sure why we do it, or if there’s a particular name for it; it just seems like a little way of accessorizing, in a sense.

Thanks for the Q @Jeruba, I’ve wondered about the hair myself, but did not know how to ask..
Does the hair to which you refer resemble anything like the bizarre Kate Gosslein look? (Photo about halfway down page next to some girl with similar “do”) I recently saw a woman of about 50 wearing it, as if it weren’t bad enough on the younger women. It makes me shudder to think of it, and yet it seems so popular that I’ve concluded that I’m the one with the problem, not them. And yet, I cannot bring myself to find anything likable about the look. I look forward to the time that this look is no longer popular…

I agree with @papayalily about the layered tops and messy hair. However, after looking at the picture you provided, the pants are decidedly leggings. I don’t understand the style at all, but many of the girls at my college wear them. Leggings can be any length from just below the knee to the ankle, but a couple inches below the knee is most common unless they are worn with boots. So, the pants are leggings and you can describe the length as you see fit.

I had been racking my brainsfor this term, and could not remember it to save my life, but I knew that Capris used to be called something else. Clam diggers!

the pants are called skinnies, they’re made of stretch denim. The shirts are just t-shirts. the hair is ‘up’ or in a ‘bun’. source: my 14 year old daughter

I would call the pants “capri leggings” (capri referring to the length and leggings referring to the material).

I would call the shirt look “layered over a long tank-top”. That’s what the girls in my area do, anyway.

Thank you, thank you! I feel better educated now.