Photos Revisit the Girly, Pre-Teen Pop Culture Experience of the 90’s

I wanted to investigate the icons we associate with girls to discuss why we assign these symbols in the first place. I wanted to place familiar things like horses, dolphins, and the color-soaked creations of Lisa Frank into the small bouts of real estate girls can make their own growing up. That’s why there’s a lot of locker school supply action going on—it’s thinking about the tools we’ve been given to express ourselves and how they look in different environments.—Elizabeth Renstrom

While she wouldn’t call them autobiographical, Brooklyn-based Elizabeth Renstrom’s photographs in Lisa Frank Blues are a captivating testament to her experiences as a preadolescent girl in the 1990s and early Y2ks. Renstrom’s tableaux of sticker-adorned cell phones and all things pastel are a glimpse into the complex machine of girly, pre-teen pop culture. Press-on nails, JTT, and Lisa Frank pencils gave girls in the 90s a way to relate to one another—a medley of sentimentality and cult-value.

This post was contributed by photographer Lisa Gonzalez.

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