Paris Hilton, queen of the 2000s.
About two years ago, one of my favorite writers, Amelia Diamond wrote a piece called, “Fashion Is Getting Dangerously Close to the 2000s” for Man Repeller. I remember reading it in 2014 and being able to make a few parallels. I read it again in 2015, when I was a freshman in college, and felt its relevance emphasized a bit. It is the homestretch of 2016 and I have nothing to say, other than—the early aughts are back with a vengeance.
Forget about the 90s or the 80s. Sure, we have chokers, satin, and crushed velvet galore. Now, take a walk into any fast fashion boutique (the true tellers of what’s in and what’s out); visit any instagram it-girl’s page, scroll through some look books online (the 2016 antidote to a catalogue) and you’ll see what I’m talking about. They say history has a funny way of repeating itself. But, I never thought I’d see the day when trends I so readily brushed off as banal and unimportant would come back to haunt me on the body of not myself, but my now 15 year old sister. Is this how my parents have been feeling?
I realized I was walking into major deja-vu worthy territory the day after Christmas when I went to Bergdorf Goodman. I was feeling bored, and thought the perfect way to cure my boredom was to give in to my inner Carrie Bradshaw and try on a plethora of designer shoes. Because of a sale, nearly everything was majorly marked down, yet just out of my price point. No harm no foul, right? Wrong.
When I got to the store’s shoe salon I found myself gravitating toward pieces I had seen before. Not on the runways, not in the magazines, and not while window shopping. I’d seen these styles about a decade ago when I was in middle school. A time when I still read Seventeen Magazine and watched The Hills. It didn’t hit me right away that the deja-vu I was experiencing was not, in fact, momentary. As I ogled a pair of bejeweled satin flats, then slowly made my way to a pair of satin Mary Jane's, I stopped to think; who am I? Who are we? Then it hit me—the early aughts were back.
It doesn’t stop with the shoes, though. When I got home and scrolled through a few Instagram stories, I was surprised to see a teen sensation/internet it-girl/influencer wearing none other than a Juicy Couture velour tracksuit. I kid you not. It was in black, with the infamous bejeweled “JUICY” stamped across her butt and an elaborate brand logo (also bejeweled) plastered on her back. After aggressively campaigning for what feels like forever, had Juicy Couture finally gotten an “in” to the social media “in crowd”?
This year was a particularly good year to be in the business of lip gloss as well. After what feels like an eternity of matte lips, the glossy pouts of yesteryear seem to have crept back into the world of makeup tutorials. In the spring, Kylie Jenner dropped her first batch of Kylie Cosmetics lip glosses. By the summer, Refinery29 had declared lip gloss officially back “in” while outlets like Vogue.com, Racked, and StyleCaster were reporting ways to incorporate glossy lips into our makeup routines. Not to mention that throughout the year people like the legendary Pat McGrath were dropping lip kits of their own.
After you put on your lip gloss, don’t forget to grab a nameplate necklace—because at this point, should you be wasting your breath telling people your name? In all seriousness, I thought these were gone for good when pop culture died in 2009, but alas! Like Carrie Bradshaw, these necklaces never really left us. Now they’re everywhere, once again.
Speaking of Carrie Bradshaw, do you want a pair of Manolo’s extra badly this year or is it just me? Although, I know the brand never fully went out of style. This year it got an extra vote of confidence after Rihanna decided to moonlight as a shoe designer and dish out not one, but two seasons worth of Blahniks! Nike’s Air Force 1 sneakers are so popular that it is almost impossible to not see a dozen pairs on any given day, at any given place, on any given group of people. Gaucho’s are now structured and called “culottes”. Lace up jeans, bustier tops, bobs and tousled lobs, not to mention an amplitude of denim—all are back and in plain sight.
Fashion has a funny way of telling us what we already know. Like history, fashion tends to press the repeat button almost as often as the refresh button. What makes these trends interesting is our outlook and our approach. So, while we are in the midst of a heavy early 2000s redux, consider this your second chance, and wear everything you never thought you could miss with a new twist. Let’s just agree to keep our “JUICY” printed sweats separate from our UGGs this time, ok?