Fashion Trends Essay Example
Imagine showing up to class wearing an outfit that you would have picked out in sixth grade. You would be completely ridiculed, right? Not exactly. Like it or not, the fashion trends of the early 2000’s, commonly referred to as “y2k”, is back and popular again about twenty years later. Low-rise jeans, baby tees, and colorful hair clips are all now a significant part of teenager fashion today. Of course, none of these clothing articles mysteriously vanished into thin air and are now suddenly back. All of these fashion trends have been around for decades. The only factor that has changed about each of them is their prevalence. Trends don’t become trends due to the fact that we have liked them for a long time; instead they become trends since people that we idolize are following them, so we conform too, even if we originally had mixed feelings about the trends. Current fashion is always changing to fit peoples’ expectations: If people say something is cute, that item is cute. If those same people later decide the same item is now hideous, that same item is hideous with no questions asked. That’s just how it is and that’s how it has always been. Either change your opinions to what the majority says to change them to, or get kicked out of the group. Pop culture, especially fashion trends, causes social change among teenagers because we are afraid of rejection.
In 1996, British fashion designer Alexander McQueen took credit for the 1990’s revival of low-rise jeans after his collection show “Dante”, which featured his famous low-rise trousers. This style of jean often measures around 7 to 8 inches from the waistband to the crotch seam. The low-rise trend surged in the 2000’s, popular among men and women alike. But like all fashion trends the infamous low-rise jeans eventually fell out of style, although they didn’t exactly leave quietly. People hated the jean style with a burning passion. Not only did people find the trend uncomfortable and unflattering, they thought it was undoubtedly hideous. Hence the low-rise jean was out.
Or so we thought.
Recently, increasingly more teenagers have been defending their low-rises. The low fit doesn’t receive as much backlash as it would have a couple of years ago, and is even starting to be considered fashionable again. Although the debate of which jean style is the best is one of the most controversial and heated arguments in the history of fashion, this is only one of numerous trends that have come back in style after decades. In fact, fashion trends are predicted to repeat every 20-30 years. In the early 2000’s, a majority of the popular fashion trends were bright and colorful. Now, twenty years later, the rage is back and known as “y2k fashion”. The hashtag “y2k” on Tik Tok has about 3.1 billion views with videos about nostalgic fashion trends, music, and movies. This trend almost makes it feel as though the teenagers of Generation Z, or Gen Z, are trying to relive their childhood years.
As mentioned before, none of these current trends ever disappeared, we simply changed our likes and dislikes in order to fit in. We see people on social media that seem as though they live a perfect life which sets the expectation for ourselves to also live a perfect life. If we enjoy something that the general public looks down on, we either lose interest, try our best to hide it or risk the possibility of being rejected. As shown in the iconic movie Mean Girls (2004), the students practically idolize Regina George, the most popular girl at school. The teenagers are thrilled to be noticed by her, complimented by her or even punched by her. The strange fashion rules that Regina’s clique–the Plastics–feel compelled to follow were made up completely by Regina, as she is the only one who knows that the rules aren’t real. In an attempt to humiliate her, Cady cuts up Regina’s shirt. However, Regina is completely comfortable with herself and wears her shirt around school, unfazed. The next day practically all the girls wear a cut up shirt, as atrocious as it seemed. And although the directors exaggerated this scene for entertainment purposes, it’s not too far fetched from the real world. We can ask ourselves the question: If Regina’s shirt looked so absurd, why did almost all the girls wear the same style the next day? People do bizarre acts to seem funny, or to seem cool and attractive. Teenagers particularly can be vulnerable to this pressure to participate in activities that seem harmful because we want people to find us interesting. The world witnessed this phenomenon with the Cinnamon Challenge (2001), the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge (2015), and arguably one of the most baffling trends: the Tide Pod Challenge (2017).
Although I personally have never tried any of these dangerous internet trends, I can’t say that I am entirely immune to the social pressure to fit in and hide certain interests. Growing up, I used to love the color pink. My favorite outfit in second grade was hot pink jeggings paired with a lighter pink shirt, topped off with pink tennis shoes and a pink bow clip holding back a strand of pink hair. I was aggressively pink. Fast forward a few years to middle school, a time when I hated the color pink. In the same way pop culture rejected low-rise jeans, I steered clear of pink, a mere color on the color wheel. This was all solely due to self-consciousness. Social media said pink was a “girl color”, and it also said that being a girl was a joke, thus started my journey of avoiding anything considered feminine. Popular movies at the time portrayed ultra-feminine characters as the villains: The mean girls who bullied the quirky girl that couldn’t care less about her appearance. In order to avoid being picked out of the crowd, I changed to blend in. This insecurity stuck for longer than I would like to admit. Only a few years ago, I made a friend that was basically the living persona of the color pink. I admired how she stayed true to what she liked even with people teasing her. Over time, I realized that people genuinely don’t care too much about other people’s lives since we are too busy worrying about our own lives. I have learned to not care as much about my peers’ judgments and that pink is just as great as any other color.
To wrap up, pop culture doesn’t exactly reflect how we have changed; popular trends shape our interests in fashion, music, and values. We admire people from a distance and imitate their actions to fit in and feel as important. We wear pink on Wednesdays and we conform to expectations so we aren’t kicked out of the Plastics. Don’t let this stress you out, though. With the exposure to countless trends and aesthetics, most teenagers have learned to become more accepting of peers with likes and dislikes that differ from their own. We should embrace this ever-changing world and do what we want to do, even if what we want isn’t actually our own desires, but somebody else’s desires. Wear your favorite jeans–low-rise, high-rise, skinny–even if they aren’t the trend now, because they will be again in just a couple of years.
