LI looks from the '50 to the '90s via Vintage Newsday Instagram

Fashion forward, or fashion backward? You can be the judge as you peruse these Long Island looks, gathered from Newsday’s photo archives.

We read that the fashions of the 1990s through early 2000s are making a comeback among Gen-Zers, but is there a place for hospital-scrubs-on-the-dance-floor, a trend circa 1980? Will elementary-age schoolchildren ever wear lace-topped bobby socks again? We’ve already witnessed the return of the mullet and all manner of beards and sideburns. And men’s shorts — thankfully — aren’t the daring statement they were in the ’50s. One thing these photos show is that making a fashion statement sometimes requires taking a good, long look at the past.

And you can do that at the Vintage Newsday Instagram — you’ll know it by the circular photo Newsday’s first female photographer, Edna Murray, circa 1945. There you’ll find these photos and many more more — including celebrity fashion photos — all curated by Newsday’s librarians.