If you were going to be part of the cool girl crowd in the ‘90s, you had to have a mini backpack — it was straight up (now tell me) essential, sort of like the Caboodle, except this was a fashion necessity you had on you every day rather than just at home or sleepovers. You know they were on trend because even Cher in Clueless rocked multiple mini backpacks. Was there anyone more iconic to look to for fashion inspiration? As if!
What goes around comes around, because mini backpacks are making a resurgence today — from Loungefly to Herschel, to Louis Vuitton and Dior — they’re everywhere. But what about the goodies inside? Let’s take a look at what you might have had hanging out in your cute mini backpack — you know, other than an old fortune teller or an elaborately folded note from your BFF.
Everyone had at least one power bead bracelet, if not multiple to stack atop each other. Each color was supposed to represent particular crystals with different meanings. For example, the pink rose quartz was supposed to promote love, harmony, and positivity.
At first, there were really only the mood rings that looked like the one on the left — a large oval. But eventually, the rings were made in different designs. Regardless, everyone wanted a mood ring, even though we all knew they had nothing to do with mood and all to do with how warm your skin was. Details, details.
Yin yang jewelry became a big thing during the ’90s — especially if they were on a skinny black rope like the above photo. Did anyone really know the Ancient Chinese philosophy behind yin and yang, or was it just ’cause it looked kinda cool?
The Baby-G watch by Casio was the coveted wrist accessory of many a girl in the ’90s. Or if not a Baby-G, a similar-looking watch (I had a Roxy Quiksilver one in purple). Baby-G is still making watches today, so you can go retro with a modern take on the ’90s classic.
If you were more of the goth persuasion (but not too goth) in the ’90s, then you definitely had a tattoo stretch choker or two in your backpack. They were designed to sit tight against the skin to look like it was a tattoo, though no one really had a neck tattoo like that, so who knows what the reasoning was here.
If you wanted to quickly pull your hair back, but didn’t want to use a typical, boring hair band, then you probably had a whole bunch of these claw hair clips in various colors and sizes. They were especially awesome if your hair was wet after swim practice — just pull it back in a claw hair clip and wham bam thank you ma’am.
These stretchable hard candy necklaces were weird, right? You’d eat a candy straight off the thing, but then it would leave a wet stretchy bit in its wake. Did anyone ever eat a whole candy necklace, or just until they got too gross and threw the rest away? A question for the ages.
If you were of the hippie or grunge persuasion in the ’90s, then hemp jewelry was right up your alley. Hemp jewelry also had a bit of mainstream appeal with the addition of cute beads. Hemp was more of a gender crossover piece of jewelry as well, with some guys getting in on the action too.
Various jewelry with smiley faces was another hot fashion item in the ’90s, but even moreso if you had something from Joe Boxer. On a personal note, I had the watch from the photo above, and still have it and the box to this day.
Though the claw hair clips above were all about putting up your entire head of hair, butterfly clips were all about adding a little bit of cute whimsy to your ‘do. They came in all sorts of different colors and types, and tons of different celebrities wore them around town.
BFF charms today are quite diverse in their options, but back in the ’90s they were all about the split heart necklace that you’d put together to spell out “best friends.” If the designs on each side of the heart were different, sometimes the hardest part was deciding who would get which side.
Bulky and a bit ridiculous, you may have had one of these finger ring watches, but it more than likely sat at the bottom of your mini backpack never to be seen again. The real question: did anyone actually use these for telling time?
The ankle bracelet, or anklet, has made a comeback in recent years, and out of all of these fashion trends, it’s the most timeless-looking, so it makes sense. If you wanted to look flirty and fun while at the beach, then you had better have an ankle bracelet in your mini backpack.
What did you keep in your mini backpack? Let us know in the comments!
- Mood rings are made from a specialized liquid crystal thermometer set inside a gemstone usually made of glass or quartz.
- On an annual basis, an acre of hemp will produce as much fiber as 2-3 acres of cotton, and as much paper material as 2-4 acres of trees.
- Yin and Yang are from the Chinese belief system called Taoism, and represent the idea that nature is made up of opposing yet complementary forces and energy — you can’t have one without the other.
- Baby-G watches were first introduced by Casio in 1994, and peaked in the late ’90s — in 1998, over 19 million G-Shock watches had been sold (which included the Baby-G watch — other G-Shock watches were aimed toward men).
- The word bandana is suspected to come from the sanskrit word ‘badhnati’ which means binds or to tie. Through colonization and trade, the name found its way into the English dictionary around the mid-eighteenth century, was later anglicized into ‘bandannoe’ via Portuguese, and eventually came to be the “bandana” we know now
- Mood rings are made from a specialized liquid crystal thermometer set inside a gemstone usually made of glass or quartz.
- On an annual basis, an acre of hemp will produce as much fiber as 2-3 acres of cotton, and as much paper material as 2-4 acres of trees.
- Yin and Yang are from the Chinese belief system called Taoism, and represent the idea that nature is made up of opposing yet complementary forces and energy — you can’t have one without the other.
- Baby-G watches were first introduced by Casio in 1994, and peaked in the late ’90s — in 1998, over 19 million G-Shock watches had been sold (which included the Baby-G watch — other G-Shock watches were aimed toward men).
- The word bandana is suspected to come from the sanskrit word ‘badhnati’ which means binds or to tie. Through colonization and trade, the name found its way into the English dictionary around the mid-eighteenth century, was later anglicized into ‘bandannoe’ via Portuguese, and eventually came to be the “bandana” we know now
