After all she still had to pay for the clothes and could easily make that excuse, to say that she did not agree with my personal fashion choices. Most of the clothes my mom would pick for me would be loose fitting jeans or khakis and nicer collared and non-collared casual shirts.
Usually an individual receives full control of their self image once they are independently supporting themselves. What is ironic about this is that the presence of peer influence of fashion is dramatically lower once you leave high school. Not to say it does not exist, but maybe to say we have grown more accustom to society's reaction to our fashion style. Since we are independent we have more freedom to make fashion choices and probably more significantly fashion blunders now that there is no initial reaction or opinion if we purchase something on our own. A perfect self example of a fashion blunder is when I wore a pair of white loose fitting jeans and a baggy white sweater with a few small blue stripes to a club to meet my friends. They laughed at my outfit and called me "Don Johnson- and "Miami Vice- for the rest of the night. Boy it would have been nice if one of them had come along when I had bought the outfit, instead I made myself look ridiculous. Although I was scrutinized I still wore those white pants and white sweater out. I just made sure in the future to not include the two together in the same outfit. I have to admit this was probably my most influenced time frame for my fashion style. During this time frame I was able to make a firm decision on my self image with no real threat to my opinions on how I should dress, with the exception of the few pokes my friends gave me. At this point I decided that loose fitting clothes were a great style for me, primarily because of the fact that I wore uniforms in the military which were much more constrictive. The looser fitting jeans and over sized T-shirts and polo shirts gave me more freedom and helped to hide my scrawny frame.