MODE Time Machine: Fall 1998

By Lesley | September 1, 2009

Stack 'o Modes

Remember when Emme wasn’t a host on a terrible and depressing reality show? More MODE scans after the jump.

	Before she hosted More to Love, Emme was a model! She also wrote an advice column for MODE that was often insightful, positive, and smart. In the example to the left, Emme discourages plastic surgery, offers instruction on dealing with credit card debt, shares some sanity around food choices, and, in a curiously predictive coincidence, makes suggestions for dealing with a fear of intimacy rooted in a reader’s weight. Click the image for a full-size reading-friendly version.
	A collarless velvet suit, worn over a black satin bra. Does it get more late 1990s than this? One of the things that’s most struck me, going through these old issues, was the way in which MODE often had to make something out of nothing, as the plus size style options, particularly high-fashion ones, were even more limited then than they are now.
	Oh wow, remember when we used to wear leopard-print leggings and ankle boots and go bike-riding around Brooklyn? How things have changed!
	From a feature that essentially calls bullshit on the traditional thinking around wearing white (i.e., not after Labor Day, not if you’re fat, not if you’re light-complected). In its early days in particular, MODE was downright inspirational in their willingness to aggressively smash up style “rules” specifying what fat women may and may not wear.