Those of you born after 1998 have only seen the good stuff.
Okay, unless you’ve been indoors for the past six years, you’re probably well aware that late ‘90s and early 2000’s fashion is *in*. But let’s be honest. Do you even remember the 90s or the early 2000s? Of course you don’t.
They were good years. Formative years. Rent was still only in the triple digits, every concept under the sun was turned into reality TV fodder and social media was but a twinkle in AOL’s eye.
On the other hand, they were also a dumpster fire. Bush. Hurricane Katrina. Really awful fashion. Worse than the ‘70s, even.
Just imagine it: all of the worst fashion trends from the previous 40 years distilled into one homogeneous mixture of bad taste and you have a vague idea of what the early 2000s was like for those of us who lived through it.
Etsy and Depop sellers have filtered out all of the garbage from those two decades and created a kind of revisionist history where you thought we all came out of the womb with our hair in perfect chunky highlights and Champion sweaters in a neat tuck.
You have no idea that the real cultural cachet of that time *wasn’t* Champion sweaters or tie-dye t-shirts. Oh, please. Those of us who were in the pre-social media trenches remember a time where Von Dutch hats and striped Hollister shirts weren’t worn ironically.
Without further ado, here’s what we would like to see back on the shelves in the roaring 20s. Until the next aesthetic intervention comes around, here’s a list of the tackiest fashion from the early 2000’s.
1. Trucker hats with tacky logos
2. Whale-tail thongs sticking out of jeans with no back pockets
3. Bedazzled. Everything.
4. Gaucho pants
5. Polos with popped collars
6. “Faux”-hawks
7. Side-swept bangs flat-ironed until you could see the slip ends
8. Hairdos with the little flip at the end
9. Silver lipstick
10. Mini or skinny ties that were ~casually~ undone
11. FUBU, G-Unit, Baby Phat and Ecko
12. Boxers sticking out of low slung jeans
13. Micro-braids
14. Colourful bra-straps sticking out as a fashion statement
15. Long ribbed shirts with lace at the bottom
16. Quarter-cut leggings (lace at the bottom optional) under a mini skirt
17. Anything “boho chic”
18. Sweaters with a front tie
19. Little scarves
20. Glossy magazines
21. Taxicab hats (worn sideways ofc)
22. Mukluks
23. Pleated mini skirts
24. Big sunglasses and even bigger bags
25. Heatherette, Chip & Pepper and Kitson
26. Hats. So many hats.
27. Shirts under shirts under shirts
28. Osiris and Etnies and Phat Farms
29. Purses shaped like cute objects (pianos, what have you)
30. Skirts over jeans