I’m just going to start off by saying one thing- since when was looking like a Stabilo Highlighter fashionable? As a monochrome, neutral loving girl all I have to say about the neon trend is that 2009 wants its colour scheme back.

It evolved out of nowhere. One minute we were all wearing black and white sporty casual outfits, pairing our bicycle shorts with cute slogan t-shirts and chunky sneakers. We were full 80’s sports themed with our cute scrunchies and maybe obnoxiously small sunglasses that have to rest halfway down your nose, of course. And then the neon manicures started. And not the classic summer Barbie pink that all of our mothers choose just before a beach holiday. It was the lumo green, the traffic cone orange, the Stabilo-doesn’t-even-make-yellow-this-bright yellow. And then, most likely, a Jenner was probably spotted wearing something obnoxiously bright from head to toe- and just like that, it was a ‘thing’.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate colour. I actually love it, and own a lot of it. But I don’t know if it’s just me- being the glow in the dark pale ginger that I am- but colours need to reach a certain level of saturation and brightness and stop there. Don’t cross over from bright vibrant green to acidic green. It’s just not necessary to walk around in a sweater that looks like a construction workers vest and is so bright you can’t really tell if it’s green or yellow. To add insult to injury no one really looks that good in it anyway. And I feel like colours of that calibre need to be purged from our closets after High School. Is Susan from HR really going to take you seriously in a traffic cone orange jacket? Probably not.

And besides that, neon wardrobes started as a thing when dark and dingy raves became the party scene. Under UV lights neons look amazing, dancing and moving against a pretty much totally black, unlit dance floor. But in daylight? Terrible. They wash everyone out- and frankly they’re obnoxious. Really, they just hurt your eyes to look at them. You don’t look good walking around in your yellow skin tight dress honey, you look ridiculous and everyone is squinting at you because it’s too damn bright.

I hopped on the neon bandwagon ten years ago, I really did. I bought every colour of those strange neon tank tops from Jay Jays. I have bedroom photoshoots of thirteen year old me and my best friend wearing six different colours in one outfit- plus neon green shoe laces in our hair.  And I can tell you now, we all looked back at the fashion of 2009 and cringed at how bad it was-  and I can tell you now, we’ll do the same next season when we’ve moved on from this ridiculous trend…