I hope you congratulated her for such a great line - stuff like that from my kids, I publicly adopt. They do the same with me, so that way I end up with my words coming out of their mouths, one way or another.
As for mom adopting the same fashions - I don't recommend it. My mother did that when mini skirts came in and my sisters twigged immediately what she was up to, and either ignored her or complimented her on her fashion sense. They knew SHE'D never leave the house wearing a mini skirt. So they kept pushing her to. She soon took her hemlines down again.
Besides, a lot of fashion is about separating the young, slim wheat from the chaff of middle age. It's about drawing lines in the sand, "I can look sexy in this, or it can make me look frumpy and even worse than I really am. The mirror will decide."
As a result, even attractive girls can look ridiculous.
by the way, I see bubble skirts are back - at least this time they're in a synthetic blend that doesn't need ironing... my brother in law ruined his daughter's pure cotton bubble skirts because they naturally got crushed in the wash. Then he ironed them so thoroughly they had a crease in the edge of the bubble. His daughter refused to wear them ever again. Bubble skirts - one of the more stupid fashions. Other stupid fashions - monochrome lycra singlet tops that show every bulge of blubber in anyone who isn't stick thin. And in those who ARE stick thin, it shows every rib. Never a good look. (So why did I buy three!??) And then these tops are worn over hipster lycra pants, or hipster skirt. Unless you have a perfect body it looks awful. Even on a perfect body it looks ordinary. So why is it that the only girls who wear this stuff end up looking like a bowl of bread dough falling off the bench? Muffin top in the extreme.
Fashion makes it clear who is young and sexy, and who is older and needs to not be so outrageously slavish to the latest trends. Young girls can look not too revolting in modern, rapidly changing fashions. But once you're past the age of about 20 it begins to look wrong.
By the time I got past my mother's fashion police I was too old to wear the latest fashions. I couldn't afford them, anyway, so I invented my own. Really up to date fashions change really fast, tend to look weird and will get discarded after only two or three outings. What about teaching kt to sew her own clothes? Or enrolling her in a modelling course? Not sure how the courses are in your area, but over here they teach a girl what looks good on HER, how to dress wisely for her figure type and how to recognise what works and what doesn't. I've seen girls enrol in fashion modelling or fashion design and suddenly leave the slavish fashion following to others. Mind you, they still tend to dress distinctively, but also much more classically.
Kt is trying to find her feet as far as her self image is concerned. She's had a bumpy ride and I can see husband's concern, but I can also see that you want her to work it out for herself rather than try to impose parental will by force.
If kt tries making her own clothes it works best if she sketches them first so she's got an idea of how she would look. Also, if you have a photo of her in swimsuit scanned onto your computer, she could use any one of a number of graphics packages to 'try on' various clothes to see how they look, before she actually buys or makes them. You could sit with her and play. Get yourself scanned in too, so you can both try on clothes in a virtual way. A lot of teen fashion is experimentation. If she's looking for approval from peers she could print out some likely looking outfits and show them to her friends. Or they could join in too, and have a computer fashion party. It's a great way to learn without putting it all out there on the street.
I hope husband can get his BiPolar (BP) down to safe levels - fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride.
Marg
