People don’t hate Y2K trends…
Minimalism. Being thoughtful with purchases yet versatile. Relevant products in front of the consumer. Super embellished pieces but moving away from logomania and casusalisation during the pandemic. Looking at new Gucci, Loewe, Fendi and Prada — these brands have stripped all looks to captivating moments with essential pieces.
The resurgence of the Y2K style, was an attempt at reviving the fun and glam in fashion, after a time that tried incredibly hard at not being tone deaf towards the pandemic. Vogue magazine covers applauded different talent at a time, certain governments didn’t look out for its frontline workers. Light was shone on tragedies that were happening in the world such as the Black Lives Matter movement. Certainly more artistic approaches were implemented during the heights of lockdown such as Hanifa 3D digital fashion show.
This meant after lockdown, designers would steer to an new adapted style of dressing, with many trends that appeared on the runway which gave a huge nod to the early 2000’s. We had Muccia Prada line the coins in our pockets to deconstructed workwear, with miniskirts over our cozy underwear, cropped jumpers and shirts for a new formal, post “over the keyboard dressing”. Elements that are significant to Y2K era.
But Y2K also represented anything that’s more of a statement. After a year of dressing down or barely dressing up. Y2K style mixes touches of sexiness, doses of color, tons of eye-catching accessories, and touches living of kitsch that were all big during the late 1990s and early 2000s. It’s the perfect recipe for making a big statement.
What post Y2K and minimalism mean in 2023 and future of fashion?
Now that we’ve probably been oversaturated with monogram garms from brands like LV, maximalism from Gucci the top selling fashion brands since 2019. Lastly oversize clothing coined by rappers in the early 2000’s but reimagined by Denma and his lense of working class Eastern Europeans at Balenciaga. A return to fine tailoring, focused on essential pieces of clothing is becoming the new normal. Celebrities have been making this smooth transition, the likes of Hailey Baldwin, Dua Lipa and Bella Hadid have been the face of a lot of resurfaced trends and just like the wind they have been stripping down their street-style looks.
The desire to dress up is still present according BOF statistics on the type of products consumers are spending their money on. With many social events due to lost time and dressing for the moment, “people are being a lot of thoughtful abut how they dress up” in contrast to not dressing up and working from home… you only need so many outfits you can repeat A.K.A. you can’t pull up in a hoodie to the function.
Not to mention the talks of sustainability and again being intentional with what one is investing in, it has become the expected standard amongst the fashion community to own durable pieces. Be it second hand vintage garms or “don’t pay full price designer. A lot of individual dressing has surfaced on TikTok and people are making do with what they have. It’s the multiverse of style. Anything extra hinting at maximalism or having more than the necessary essentials is to be stored away. Until things become to chaotic and fashion feels like trends evil necessary again to re-establish order.
