How vintage styles from the early 2000s have come back into society’s contemporary dressing culture and icons of the past stay living as trendsetters.
By: Yvonne Le
(Abby Grant/CanCulture)
Trends come and go and come back once more again. We constantly recycle garments that were popularized in past mainstream fashion, extending and reviving their life cycle that usually fades out the way clothes do in our current contemporary dressing culture. When we look back at major Y2K fashion, the low waist jeans, thick strappy sandals, baby tees and rhinestones are just the start of it. But what is it about the Y2K aesthetic that allows it to have such a strong presence today?
Y2K fashion has made a huge resurgence with vintage clothing consumption being a catalyst for this. The 2000s were an era full of evolving hip hop and pop culture that significantly influenced the dressing culture of the time. The cultivation of sneaker culture, denim and true personal style with major subcultures emerged during the 2000s. Scene culture is one of the major subcultures that have an influence on e-girl trends today and is returning to social media platforms.
Instagram Influencer Ines Silva in E-girl make-up in 2019 (@irislovesunicorns/Instagram)
If we fast forward into the dominance of fast fashion on the internet from the early Forever 21 YouTube hauls, we see the contrast of the thrift bundles that became quite popular in the late 2010s. Consumers are buying from Depop sellers more than ever as the application harboured around 6.5 million users in the month of May 2021 according to Airnow. Internet Girl became a popular example of thrift sellers who sell clothes with the aesthetics of the 1990s and 2000s. She dubs her bundles “IGIRL BUNDLES.” The height of popularity for upcycled garments has also grown exponentially. In Canada, Vancouver-based upcycle retailer Frankie Collective has reached over 300k Instagram followers.
Amidst the growth of online shopping, information about the clothes we purchase became very accessible for generation Z, a demographic that has grown up impacted by the overconsumption of clothes in the wave of climate change. These concerns have allowed many to turn to alternative ways of shopping and with the height of thrifting, reselling and environmental consciousness, it is inevitable that garments from the 2000s come right back in the life cycle of clothes.
When thinking about our current situation of the pandemic, popular trend analyst @Thealgorythm on TikTok has covered current trends during quarantine and what the young generation is wearing. The subversive dressing culture has become popular but also in style, no surprise, is Y2K vintage!
Sewing and the artisanal crafting of garments were amongst the many hobbies that arose during the pandemic, with many sewing patterns being from the early 21st century. It has allowed many people time to reflect on their lives through self-expression. This has allowed an imagined community in many niches to form and reminisce on their aesthetics through a lens of escapism. We see cottagecore and dark academia but also pop icons resurge onto different platforms. When time during the pandemic seems frozen, people naturally turn to the past to relive many memories.
It’s hard not to refer to the past especially when many renowned designers look at archival designs for new collections. @Thealgorythm explains repurposing styles of the past as the “New Vintage.” Luxury fashion brand Marine Serre becomes an example of this through their use of second-hand, deadstock and recycled materials in their current collections.
In Raf Simons’ 2020 Prada SS22 collection debut, for the first time in a virtual fashion week, Simons and Miuccia Prada looked back to their iconic looks with Prada’s past silhouettes of nylon and Simon’s signature graphic prints.
"Fashion always hopes for the new, everybody wants to be new,” Simons told the Fashion Network. “But when you have a brand for a few decades, what's important is to refresh your own body of work.”
The ambassadors of these fashion houses also play a part in the ways trends amass big followings. Varying from celebrities to influencers, pop culture stands as a strong factor for the rise of Y2K fashion. We see Emma Chamberlain, a content creator and Louis Vuitton ambassador, as the trendsetter for the young teenage girls who await her seasonal outfits and seek to replicate them in their own way. As a YouTuber and content creator, her huge growth on the platform is well known to the generation Z online community. She is just one of the many influencers who have impacted this generation’s dressing culture.
When fast fashion retailers have begun to sell newly manufactured vintage designs, you know Y2K has really come back. It’s quite a paradox when the old becomes the new and trendy once again!
It is safe to say that there isn’t one main reason why Y2K fashion has come back with our easy access to consume media. In our current environment of rapid change, people will always look back to the past and grab something to feel for much longer.