For many millennials (myself included), the early to mid-Noughties is a fashion era we would rather forget. When I think back to my knockoff baby-pink Juicy Couture tracksuit paired with fake Uggs (that famously leant to the side due to their low quality), I feel queasy. It’s the same as when I think of the many ginormous disc belts I collected, the baker-boy hats I tilted to the side and the tiny waistcoats that I sometimes wore.
Our secret shame has resurfaced, however: Y2K fashion (exact meaning: fashion dating from about the year 2000) is back in a big way, leaving those of us who survived it grappling with the ghost of Jane Norman as well as enduring the discombobulating experience of realising the stuff we wore in our teenage years is now old enough to be deemed vintage. It seems as if it was only yesterday we were guffawing at galleries of various Noughties fashion moments. Remember Christina Aguilera combining every big 2001 trend on the MTV Video Music awards red carpet in low-rise patchwork jeans, a belly chain, crop top and denim newsboy hat? Or Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears’s infamous his’n’hers double-denim look? And yet Y2K dominated during the recent fashion weeks. From Versace and Missoni to Blumarine and Coperni, the catwalks were homages to bandanas, butterfly tops and bedazzling logos.
So who better to entrust with the betterment of a seemingly tragic fashion era than the saviour generation, Gen Z, aka the under-25s? Turn-of-the-millennium trends have been steadily rising mainly thanks to TikTok, which has resurfaced and dissected the popular culture of the time. Scrolling the platform feels as though society did finally succumb to the Y2K bug — and the glitch has left teens suspended in the past.
Current fashion is dominated not by the sweatpants and oversized jumpers we lived in last year, but the wide-legged jeans, pleated skirts, baguette bags, chunky trainers and designer monograms of the Noughties. Indeed, Y2K is currently Depop’s most popular category. Even the maligned Crocs have made a comeback (much to my glee), with 2020 global sales figures reaching $1.38 billion and this year’s looking even better after collaborations with Justin Bieber, Saweetie and Balenciaga. Celebrities like Lizzo and Dua Lipa have been channelling Mariah Carey in her legendary glitter butterfly crop top with their own butterfly-embellished looks. Meanwhile, Bella Hadid wore a vintage Jean Paul Gaultier couture gown from 2002 at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and Rihanna sported a vintage Dior slip dress from John Galliano’s spring/summer 2002 collection for a date with Asap Rocky.
And Y2K has not just taken over fashion; pop culture has also parked itself in 2003. There has been a reality TV renaissance only matched by the ubiquity of the genre in the Noughties, when Big Brother and The Bachelor were hitting screens for the first time. Friends, Gossip Girl and Sex and the City are back, and “Bennifer” and Britney remain at the centre of public consciousness as though the past two decades never happened.
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Gen Z’s fixation with the period makes perfect sense: though technically retro, the future is so at the core of the Y2K aesthetic that it feels forward-facing and nostalgic all at once. The turn of the millennium was an era of new beginnings, the burgeoning of popular culture as we know it and the digital age, even if the internet was dial-up. It was an unapologetically forward-looking time of optimism, whether that was the raising of the Millennium Wheel, Matt Groening’s Futurama on TV or the shiny, robot aesthetics of Missy Elliot, Busta Rhymes and TLC in music videos. The optimism of the era feels much needed right now with the climate crisis, a continuing pandemic and economic uncertainty.
So how does it feel for those of us who remember Y2K to experiment the second time round? If I’m honest, perhaps because it’s tied too closely to my teens, I feel the trend isn’t for me. Dressed for this Style shoot, I felt like I was a Freaky Friday-esque parody of myself aged 13. Something about Y2K — even the first time around — feels so heavily tied to youth. Though I’ll admit to being partial to a pair of wide-leg jeans.
And could it be that the ubiquity of Y2K fashion is actually stifling experimentation? “No more references or homages please,” the American fashion historian Shelby Ivey Christie (@bronze_bombSHEL) recently tweeted. “Our eyes are starving for fresh perspective/dress. We won’t have any decade defining style for the roaring 20s … if we keep rewearing 90s + Y2K things.”
It’s a fair point: if this generation only rehashes Noughties style, then bootleg jeans and baker- boy hats will be gracing the catwalk again in the year 2040.
Get the look
● Sunglasses, £22; freepeople.com
● Chain belt, £109, Sandro; selfridges.com
● Ring, £6; asos.com
● Bag, £85; guess.eu
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● Jeans, £50; weekday.com
● Cardigan, £28; zara.com
● Trainers, £70; zara.com
Styling: Flossie Saunders. Hair: Zateesha Barbour at LMC Worldwide. Make-up: Carol Brown at Arlington Artists using Mac Cosmetics
