As tops get shorter, bottoms get tighter, and hair explores a wider spectrum of colours, Yasmine El-Rashidi goes about town, looking for what's "in" If I were 15, I would have to wear hip-hugging hipsters, Guess tops, and either three-inch sabot (backless) sandals or flat ones that make me scuff across pavements when I walk. I'd have to carry a little handbag type thing that would hang uncomfortably from my forearm, and I would, of course, need extra pocket money for hair, skin and nails. To start with, it would be de rigeur to have my hair "done" every week (blow- dried straight, that is). My nails would have to be in tip-top shape, and painted either a scary dark colour, or a sparkly something. Suffocating my skin beneath layers of foundation would not faze me, nor would the additional layers of other coloured stuff on my lips, eyes and cheeks. If I were totally with it, I would also have coloured streaks of reddish, or purplish stuff in my hair. It would be okay if I didn't so long as my hair was sleek, shiny, and 'flickable' with my hand every minute and a half. Or I could, alternatively, be veiled. My outings would be divided into near-equal slices of time; 45 per cent with my entire 'group', and 55 per cent with the 'girls' in the WC -- making sure that everything is in place. If I did all these things and didn't smoke or use bad language, I would be part of the very 'in' crowd that hangs around TGI Friday's, the Grand Café, one of the sporting club hangouts, and all the trendy venues. I could, however, be a part of the more laid-back crowd. In which case, I would wear a lot less make-up and scrunch my hair up in some bun thing, or perhaps just a ponytail. I'd wear sporty, tight T-shirts that may just reveal my belly when I so much as breathe, and my jeans would be baggy; probably dragging at the feet; the latter would be clad in flip-flops, or trainers, or some other sports-type shoes. I'd wear hippie- looking strings around my wrists (friendship bracelets), and my ears would be glimmering with at least half a dozen earrings between them. I would do a lot of hanging out outside school, or at Chili's, or friend's houses, or casual coffee shops. I'd make a darn good hippie-chic if I did all these things, and the cool sporty guys would like me because I'd be tough, good to play basketball with, and I wouldn't mind sitting on the pavement talking, drinking Pepsi, and maybe smoking. I'd also get good grades, which would make me the ultimate in coolness. Or I could, of course, do none of the above and just be a total nerd and not a member of any of the popular crowds. Things have changed tremendously since I was 15, 10 years ago, and they have changed even more since my cousin was 15, 10 years before that. I was sworn to secrecy of my mother's age when I was about five, but things have certainly changed since her teenage years a few odd years before that. In my time, make-up was a no-no, high-heels were definitely out, parents picked us up from school, multiple piercings were what punks did, and hair-dye was not for 'little' girls. "You'll look like a bohemian," my mother used to say. "A hippie. I will not have my daughter walking around looking like that." At that time, her opinion mattered, and her word held sway. But, the tone of the fashion editor has changed, the young ones have turned into free agents, and the norm has shifted. What is most striking about the flashy new generation, is not just how the simplicity has been lost, or how young girls accessorise with the paraphernalia once reserved solely for young women, but how the tools of seductive and sexy have been adapted to fit both the spreading of the veil and the covering of the flesh. Skin, in this globalised modern day and age, is no longer mandatory to being 'attractive'. "I've lived here almost seven years now," says Suzanne Taher, a private-lesson English teacher. "I've slowly seen the veil come back over those years. In recent years, especially, there seems to have been a big change." A big change, she means, not just in how many heads are adorned in the scarf, but how the scarf itself is becoming a fashion statement. "These women," Taher says, with slight hesitation and the intonation of surprise, "they're strikingly attractive. Some of them look so beautiful. I probably wouldn't look at them if they were just dressed normally, but the way they wear their veil is remarkable." Some of them are practically 'women', while others are fairly young. Their head-turning outfits and adornments are remarkable in that they are flowing and chic, and the colours and accessories are bright and matching, and their makeup -- like the rest of their unveiled contemporaries -- is impeccable. "Women's sense of dress seems to have become a lot more sophisticated than before," says Farida Osman, a mother of two teenagers. "We were much simpler before. Much less modern, I suppose." In a sense, she has a point, but her perspective is way off base. Thirty and 40 years ago, micro- and mini-skirts were the norm. Today, the thought of wearing shorts in the streets makes me shudder at the prospect of harassment and vulgar comments. During my mother's university years, such outfits didn't cause a brow to rise. "I used to wear tiny skirts, and little strapless tops, and take the minibus to university!" she says. "And no one would stare, bother you, or make you feel uncomfortable." It was the norm, almost. "The culture has become a lot more conservative. And yet, when I look at what young people wear today, I am shocked. They seem so grown-up; so particular in their choice of dress." She is shocked, probably, because both trousers and tops have gotten a whole lot tighter -- and somehow more revealing than their micro-mini predecessors. 'Body-hugging' in modern terms. "We wouldn't have been allowed to dress like that. Not the clothes, and certainly not the makeup," Osman says. But things haven't changed that drastically, after all. "We're not really allowed," says one trendy 17-year-old, Dina Fattah, who was 'chilling' at the Grand Café with some equally 'in' friends on a Thursday evening. "I mean, of course our parents know we go out and stuff, but my father would slaughter me if he knew I had all this make-up on. Or that I took of my shirt." The girls giggle. The 'shirt' is nowhere in sight. "It's in the car," she explains of the big, baggy, body-hiding item used to facilitate the 'okay' on outings. "My mother knows though," she laughs. "My mother is 'ishta'." The word ishta (literally, cream, meaning cool) is littered throughout the conversation. I inquire about the term that started to bud almost 10 years ago. "Why?" the group of seven girls and four boys look puzzled. The girls giggle, again. The boys answer: ishta. Boys fashion, I am informed, is 'anything goes'. Jeans, T-shirts, shirts, worn in a personal, self-determined style. It is observed that jeans are slightly baggy, and shirts are never tucked in. "They're not like us," Rasha Soleiman volunteers, looking at them flirtatiously. "They wear anything. It takes them five minutes to get dressed," she notes. "And we have to wait for them for hours," Omar Sabet (baggy jeans and a pale Quicksilver shirt) retorts playfully. Apparently it is not cool to talk about the dress of these young men. The look is meant to be carefree and casual, a perfected blasé. Their fashion statements are shared by groups loitering outside the TGI/Fish Market boat on Giza's bustling Nile strip. And they spread to Chili's Heliopolis, the Merryland slightly- slower-than-fast food court, Harris Café, Coco Jungle, and the unnamable multiples of shisha joints scattered around town. Sitting at Harris Café in Heliopolis, Sara Qabbani, 16, offers her perspective on the whole teenage scene. "Our parents don't understand," she begins, matter-of-factly. "Young people dress like this today, it's 'aady (normal). All over the world the youth are dressed like this. They're just used to something else, you know? They were brought up in a different way, with different principles. And because they don't see as many movie as us and stuff, and they don't get on the Internet and everything, they don't know. And, it's not just people like us," she giggles, referring to how fashion cuts across the various strata of society. Her friends agree through the continual nodding of their heads. They observe, pertinently, that even at public bus stations, the girls -- veiled or not -- wear skin-tight jeans and hip-reaching shirts. "You can see their," she halts, gestures, indicating 'posteriors'. "Just because you are veiled," her friend Pucie offers, "It doesn't mean you don't take care of yourself." Besides, baggy is unattractive, close-fitting-bordering-on-tight is much more feminine. "I don't want my clothes to look like a garbage bag. It's not right," Pucie says, throwing everyone into a state of high-pitch laughter. Their parents, they decide, just don't get that the entire world is wearing tighter jeans, more fitting tops, tonnes of makeup, super-high heels, and lots of stuff in their hair. "It's their upbringing," Qabbani sighs. It is exhausting, they complain, to deal with parents sometimes. It is not that they are not doing a good job, or are difficult or uncaring. But, they just don't get it. Parents, popular teenage opinion concurs, are just not 'with it'.
