Long live Groovy Chick, the original fashion influencer

A tweenage love letter.

Groovy Chick, I never knew where you were catwalking off to in those lime green flares, but at 12, I’d have followed you anywhere. I loved that you called yourself groovy, a word only our mums and Austin Powers used, and somehow still made it cool. 

I loved the very chic tiny sunglasses you pushed up on your head and your handbag that was too small to fit a Nokia 3310. You had no nose and, in fact, barely had any facial features at all, yet still knew all your best angles (exclusively mid-strut). You were my first fashion influencer, and girl, you were iconic.

For more fashion news, shoots, articles and features, head to our Fashion section.

Groovy Chick, I remember wearing your face on my T-shirt to my friend’s 12th birthday, styled with butterfly clips, a choker from Diva, a cloud of Spice Girls Impulse body spray and low-rise Just Jeans. I’d made mum wash you the night before. You were fresh and I was feeling myself. I also had your blow-up couch and Friendship Book that I forced every girl in my class to fill out.

In our year, you were a status system. T-shirt: cool. Pencil case: very cool. Bedspread: royalty. I had everything but the bedspread, and to this day, when someone tells me they had it, I smile politely and secretly hate them.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by groovy chick (@groovychickofficial)

You were born at Bang on the Door, the British studio Karen Duncan and Samantha Stringle started in 1988 in a freezing flat above a North London butcher. You arrived in the ’90s and eventually made it all the way to suburban Melbourne, where your influence on my style was matched only by the Olsen twins and Bardot.

A few years later, I was on the other side of the counter at my first retail job at Supré, selling slogan T-shirts that told girls who to be (usually Santa’s Bitch). You never told me anything; you didn’t even have words. And I think that’s why I loved you so much. I could put you on and feel good about myself.

Obviously, you were selling me things. But you weren’t selling me an entire way to live. I didn’t even need to know anything about your life. There was no pressure to copy your morning routine or ask where you got your tiny sunnies. There was no ‘Groovy Chick wears Rhode, so I need Rhode.’ No ‘get ready with me,’ no ‘what’s in my bag’ (probably because your bag couldn’t fit anything anyway). I could only wear your face on my top. The influencers I actually wanted to be? They were in my year and had your bedspread.

Not that the 2000s were some pre-influencer utopia. I’m still recovering from The Biggest Loser and Australia’s Next Top Model. But I am nostalgic for the embarrassing tween years you were very much a part of, when the trendiest person alive could be a nose-less cartoon in a crop top (sorry, Groovy Chick, you know I mean that as a compliment).

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by groovy chick (@groovychickofficial)

I’m not sure tweens even get an awkward phase any more. The ones I see look like they could style me and I’d honestly pay them to. But when I was their age, I was coordinating my outfit with my pencil case and feeling incredibly chic. I wonder how long girls get to feel that young now. 

Clearly, I’m not the only grown woman who misses you. You’ve found your way back to ASOS and Primark, worn by women in their thirties who, I think, might be hoping some of that 12-year-old confidence comes with the T-shirt.

And maybe I’m extra nostalgic because I have a daughter now. She’s six and lives in a K-Pop Demon Hunters top, because Rumi, the purple-haired demon hunter, is the coolest girl alive. She wears it everywhere and (like her mother before her) it has to be freshly washed for parties. I recognise the look on her face when she puts it on. It’s the one I had in the mirror before that birthday.

But Rumi isn’t just a picture on a T-shirt. She has a whole Netflix movie, a backstory and songs I have in my head on loop (against my will). I think it’s golden that my daughter has a hero who fights demons and stands up for herself. You were groovy, but you didn’t fight demons or stand up to anyone. You mostly just looked like you had somewhere to be.

In fact, because I knew almost nothing about your life, I used my imagination. Some days you were a pop star, some days you were a marine biologist (the official dream job of every millennial) and most days you were just me, or at least the confident version I was practising to be.

I love you, Groovy Chick. You were one cool curved line in flares and you let me fill in the rest. Stay groovy, baby. 

Follow along with Ali here.