Why The Early 2000’s Fashion Resurgence Is Problematic For Millennials
I’m a textbook Millennial—I entered my teens shortly before September 11 and entered the workforce when the domino effect of the 2008 financial collapse hit. I downloaded all the music from LimeWire, joined MySpace in 2005, worked at Blockbuster, and remember when you had to have a .edu email address to join Facebook.
Wow… I’ve seen some pivotal Millennial moments.
One of those key pivotal Millennial moments? The horrific fashion. I can now admit two decades later we were not cute with our low-rise jeans, designer embosses purses, weird graphic tees, and butt-graphic sweats. As someone who enjoys fashion and looking good for no one other than myself, this is hard to admit.
It wasn’t all bad, though. There were some positive trends that are still reverberating; the increased acceptance of tattoos and unnatural hair colors in the workplace, athleisure, and an overall laissez-faire approach to clothing.
Just like the recycling of trends from the 1970s and 1980s were exciting to people my age — my junior prom dress would fit in perfectly at Studio 54, by design, of course. The resurgence of the early 2000s fashion is no doubt fun for the fashion forward members of Gen Z, just as my disco-inspired prom dress was for me.
Those of us who were there for the velour tracksuits, impossibly toned midriffs, and the infamous zig-zag part, know the era of these trends was rife with body shaming, eating disorders, and the rampant glorification of extremely thin bodies. Don’t believe me? Just watch an episode of the first few seasons of America’s Next Top Model. Millennials can recall a time when the culture suggested that women like Renée Zellweger and Jessica Simpson were “fat”.
It seemed almost everyone looked the same then—especially women. The ideal early 2000s woman was tall but not too tall, thin but not skinny, tan but not too tan, blonde or brown hair, with breasts no longer than a C or D, protruding hip bones, and a nice butt that wasn’t too big.
Essentially, the cast of Laguna Beach and later The Hills.
As a pale redhead with a D cup in eighth grade, minus Lindsay Lohan for a brief period, representation for women who looked like me was slim to none.
You didn’t have to watch reality TV in the early 2000s to get the memo that women had to look a certain way to be desirable or worthy of fashion. All you had to do was glance at a cover of one of the many magazines readily available at the grocery store checkout line to learn if you weren’t skinny, you pretty much sucked.
Television was loaded with commercials for Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem. Society, in general, was infinitely more critical of those who didn’t fit the ideal. Does Fat Monica ring a bell?
For many, you didn’t have to flip through the pages of Us Weekly or turn on the TV to get the memo your body was wrong… it happened at home. We barely had social media! I can only imagine how awful it is for younger girls today. Almost every woman around my age has a story about family members, friends, etc., making comments about their bodies. You can search the web and find thousands of stories of women my age sharing their trauma and realizing just how messed up society was about bodies, diets, fitness, and health two decades ago.
I can recall an extended family member suggesting I “switch to diet soda,” and to “stop snacking between meals. If you’re already as big as you are now, it’s going to catch up with you. You better be careful!”
I was 14.
Ironically, this individual now suffers from rampant type 2 diabetes and can barely walk down the stairs. Before anyone asks, these comments were not made out of tough love. Meanwhile, I do CrossFit, HITT, lift weights, and walk various dogs miles every week. Not to toot my own horn — just making a comparison.
Even with all that, regular intermittent fasting, and a relatively healthy diet — I mean, I could improve, but have you eaten Insomnia Cookies at 2 a.m? My body, and almost everyone else’s, doesn’t fit the slim/thick look of today or the lean look of the early 2000s, which, if the current Ozempic epidemic in Hollywood is any indication, is coming back with a vengeance.
Every era had its own ideal body type based on the fashions of the time. No one, except those who embody the “it” style of whatever decade, fit the narrative. Not every woman in the 1950s looked like Grace Kelly, just like not every woman looks like whatever is “in” today.
For someone in my age bracket, seeing the baby tees, low-rise jeans, bandanna tops, and butterfly clips back on the shelves at Target brings back memories of both a more innocent yet more sinister time.
We might have traded our Abercrombie and Fitch for Everlane, but seeing a graphic crop top paired with low-rise jeans and frosted eyeshadow both makes us nostalgic for a time when you had to memorize phone numbers and worried for a future generation of women — worried they will develop the same trauma of their millennial foremothers.
Also, fashion recycling reminds us that we’re getting older. Remember hearing your mother say things like, “I wore those when I was in high school?”
Well, my fellow jaded millennials, we’ve turned into our mothers.
It has been theorized the Y2K fashion resurgence has caused Gen Z to revive the impossibly thin look of the decade to go along with it; further repeating the cycle of the toxic diet culture of time.
How could a generation known for body positivity and accepting yourself fall into this trap?
Well, it’s easy… the ideal never went away. It doesn’t take a sociologist to realize this. The trap’s already been set, and it’s been full of mice for decades…
We’ve made some progress by showing more realistic bodies in the media, by clothing designers offering more sizes, and by an overall more positive and realistic approach towards fitness and health. Still, thinner bodies are still seen as more valuable and fashionable and that is not the case. On the other hand, there is much warranted backlash against the body positivity and fat acceptance movements, but that’s a topic for another day.
Whatever body type or fashion that comes into style in the future (I’m personally hoping for a disco revival), one thing will remain the same… hardly anyone is going to fit the mold, so why try? We’re never going to win.
Recently, I was on Reddit and saw a post in a fashion sub of a young woman in a butterfly top. Yep… they’re back! I immediately thought, “there’s no way she was alive the first time those were a thing,” followed by, “I couldn’t wear those then, and I sure I shit couldn’t wear one now!”
Now, a butterfly top wasn’t my style then, nor is it my style now. I’m almost 35… I’m past trendy fashion for the most part. The fact those thoughts were even in my head to begin with clearly shows growing up in this era did a number on me.
So, to the members of Gen Z and future generations, proceed with caution in the future. One thing holds certain… trends come and go, but the deep-seated trauma and body image issues have yet to go away — and never will.
