#1 Lisa Kudrow Aka “Phoebe” Wearing A Team Lithuania Basketball Tee While Filming An Episode Of Friends In 1997
The iconic group Grateful Dead agreed to help sponsor Lithuania’s national basketball team alongside with the designer of the ‘Skullman’ t-shirt Greg Speirs, if they agreed to wear tie-dyed uniforms.
Getting the Dead was a major coup. The band wrote a check for $5,000 but more importantly granted Lithuania the rights to sell a Dead t-shirt, a stoned-out psychedelic masterpiece splashed with Lithuania’s national colors of green, red, and yellow and anchored by the Dead’s skeleton symbol.
Between the excitement of Lithuania taking home the bronze medal in 1992 and sales of the t-shirt, it financed most of Lithuania’s participation in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. The shirt kept Lithuania in the news while telling the story of the country's heroic struggle for freedom and its battle to get the team to Barcelona.
While browsing through these pics, you'll notice that many of them feature '90s fashion. Some pop culture experts argue that the 1990s ushered in the birth of the supermodel. Models became celebrities, with people idolizing them perhaps more than fashion designers and movie stars.
As Lilah Ramzi writes for Vogue, the '90s were the decade models became far more famous than the clothes. Supermodels became icons; people wanted to know where and how they lived, who they were dating, and what they were like. If before, models were a blank canvas, almost mannequins for the clothes they modeled, this decade wanted models with passion, character, and personalities.
#4 For 738 Days, Between 1997 And 1999, Julia ‘Butterfly’ Hill Lived In The Canopy Of An Ancient Redwood Tree In California Called Luna On Two 6 X 4 Foot Platforms
She sat in the tree, originally expecting to be up there for one to two weeks like many activists were in the 1990s, not aware of the impact her act was going to have.
After a long period of negotiations, Julia agreed to come down from Luna after agreeing that the tree would be permanently protected and a near three-acre buffer zone would be put in around the tree.
The stunt also raised awareness of the lack of trees left standing in America.
When Julia came down, she was a national hero and quickly became recognized for the memorable protest.
#5 In 1994, Gilbert Baker Created A Mile-Long Rainbow Flag For The 25th Anniversary Of The Stonewall Riots
Although they were not the first instance in American history when people in the homosexual community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities, they have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.
The most well-known supermodels of the decade were Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, and Christy Turlington. Or, as known to fashion enthusiasts, "The Big Four." Some people also add Claudia Schiffer to the group, making it "The Big Five." But the '90s also gave us many other icons: Tyra Banks, Carla Bruni Sarkozy, Helena Christensen, Elle McPherson, Yasmeen Ghauri, and many more.
By the second half of the decade, many new young names surfaced. Designer Karl Lagerfeld described them as "very young, very much like children—what's referred to like an elf. There is a kind of vulnerability about them. They need protection…" These models were Kate Moss, Amber Valetta, Stella Tennant, Shalom Harlow, and Kirsty Hume.
#8 The Man Who Came Back From The Dead To Win The Lottery…(Twice) In 1999
Bill Morgan was asked to reenact his recent lottery win for TV after local news outlets decided to feature his incredible story and suggested to him that he buy another scratch-off ticket.
Astoundingly, while the cameras were rolling, Bill scratched off the ticket and discovered he had won $250,000. An incredible chain of events played out in his fortune. Almost unbelievable if it weren’t documented.
These new faces also ushered in a new aesthetic: somewhat a return to the gamine form of the '60s. But this time, it was more minimalist. The way Lagerfeld described the younger models, "as if they need protection," went hand in hand with their waifish appearance.
These models were less about the perfect skin and hair and more about dark circles under their eyes, and, according to Ramzi, "possessing bird-like hollow bones."
#10 Diego Maradona’s Daughter Dalma Picks Flowers For Her Father Which He Proudly Wears During Training. (1989)
These new models signaled what was to come in a few years: grunge. Emerging from Seattle primarily as a music style, grunge soon had young people clamoring for the edgy, effortless aesthetic. In fact, some even call grunge-style clothing an anti-fashion statement. Professor of American popular culture Thomas L. Bell wrote in 1998 that the goal was to appear as nonchalant as possible.
#13 Forrest Gump Directed By Robert Zemeckis (1994) "My Momma Always Said There's An Awful Lot You Can Tell About A Person By Their Shoes”.
#14 Matthew Mcconaughey In Dazed And Confused Directed By Richard Linklater (1993)
"Flannel shirts and Doc Martens boots were worn as an anti-fashion statement that is undoubtedly related to the unassuming and unvarnished nature of the music itself," Bell wrote. The New York Times described the '90s style as cheap, durable, and timeless. "It also runs against the grain of the whole flashy aesthetic that existed in the '80s."
#16 Louise Bourgeois ‘Spider’ Sculpture In The 90s
For Bourgeois, the spider embodied an intricate and sometimes contradictory mix of psychological and biographical allusions. Partly a reference to her mother, partly to herself, spiders for her represented cleverness, industriousness, and protectiveness.
#18 Anjelica Huston Photographed By Annie Leibovitz For Vanity Fair. {july•1990}
Grunge trickled down to the runways too. Marc Jacobs' 1993 spring/summer collection for Perry Ellis was inspired by grunge. Unfortunately, it was also what he got fired for. Jacobs created a grunge aesthetic by imitating flannels with silk shirts and chiffon dresses to look like they were made out of polyester. He "reinterpreted these rough garments in the finest fabrics," according to Lynn Yaeger.
#19 A Message From Samantha Jones: "These B**ches Need To Be Put In Their Places"
