Y2K - why?

[TheLeadbetterLife]

This Y2K trend—I suppose it must be very young people looking at pics of Girls Aloud or Britney and thinking they look cool and retro?

Even though I was in my 20s during the 00s, I have no nostalgia for the fashion whatsoever. It was so basic. All strappy cami tops and hipster jeans. A-line knee length skirts in thin tweed, with a fitted v-neck jumper—I'd look twenty years older if I wore that now.

I suppose every generation looks at the one before with fresh eyes, but I'm surprised—with all the wild and wonderful shapes, colours and fabrics that are around now—that anyone finds the Y2K era at all inspiring.

I agree, OP. It was so boring! Hipster jeans, horrible black party trousers, block colour tops, vest tops for going out, boring suits for work. Awful!

The bias cut skirts! They seem to be back, but why? Rationing-chic-meets-Royal-wife?

They look terrible in cheapo fast fashion fabrics.

Ha! I remember feeling like that in the 90s when everything in the shops looked like a badly made rip-off of the 70s. That was annoying.

Since then I think I've grudgingly come to accept that western fashion is stuck in a permanent 60-year recycle and is seemingly incapable of breaking free. I can even quite enjoy guessing what's going to make a comeback and figuring out which pieces I want to revisit, and how I might wear them this time around.

But I've also decided that, if I want to find fresh and new I need to start looking beyond fashion from Europe and the US.

I think one of the interesting things about fashion at the moment is how shapes from Asian and African fashion have come into Europe @Floisme. Though I imagine Japanese people lament the cycling of their own fashion as much as we do.

My specific beef with Y2K is that it was shit at the time, too, not just in the reboot.

I love looking at the street fashion pics from the Asian and Lagos fashion weeks on the Vogue app. They're amazing—so different from any of the European styles. African fashion really inspires me—it's so bold, and often designed for large-framed women like me. I live in Portugal, so the climate and light here really works with bright colour and pattern.

To be fair I don't remember Y2K fashion very well as at that point I had a baby who I swear never slept for more than 20 minutes until he was 3

Those knee length floppy skirts suited no one! Just been watching the In Vogue series on Disney, really enjoyed it, took me right baby to late 80’s fashion.
I absolutely dresses as a nice top worn over jeans.
I can remember those dresses Girls Aloud wore in the Love Machine video - they were everywhere!
I wore a lot of head-to-toe Karen Millen with the logo on everything I must have looked ridiculous!

Y2K I would associate with more colours - in recent years, so much of the stuff around has been like sludge, so grim. On that ground, it would be an improvement.

I really enjoyed Y2k fashion. Obviously jeans were my No1 item of clothing. I had many pairs,mostly boot cut and flares. I only wore back trousers to work. I had some beautiful tops, I remember a Ted Baker one, black, one side had a thin strap, the other was a frilly cap Sleeve, it had beautiful embellishments. It cost so much, I had another Ted Baker one which was cream with a brown leaf like pattern, a bit tribal, it was a halter neck and at the end if the halter ties it had shells stitched on. Another one I had was of a similar nature (not Ted Baker), it was so colourful in purples, blues etc with butterflies stitched on and one thin strap and one frilly cap seeve. I remember wearing it with a denim pencil skirt. I had some amazing clothes. After that phase it was all about the floral tea dress with brown suede ankle boots. Blazers chunky knit cardigans. For me it was anything but boring.

It was the start of "throwaway" fashion

yes

I had some interesting jeans around that time that definitely weren't boring. My favourite were purple, with pink fading, and covered in glitter! I also had a beige glittery pair that I used to pair with a black handkerchief top and boots with platforms bigger than any heels I now own. I also used to make my own alterations and had a pair of plain jeans which I covered in beaded stars. I would say my y2k wardrobe was the loudest I've ever owned, each to their own.

What knew lenghth skirts do you speak of? They sound perfect for me! 😁

I loved the Y2k fashion and still do now. Perhaps that's because I was a teenager then so I have the nostalgia of it. Have always loved the low-rise flared hipster jeans!

Ah yes it's coming back to me after reading everyone's posts . How could I have forgotten the age of Top Shop!

Those years just before the banking crash were unreal. Clothing production had moved overseas and prices were faking (at least in real terms if not literally) but quality hadn't started to tank. I remember the British high street was amazing for a few years although it was totally unsustainable.

I had a fabulous pair of bright orange flared hipster jeans, which I wore with a tight white t-shirt with a space hopper on it. I loved that outfit!

My favourite going out outfit was a pair of lilac satin cropped trousers (Karen Millen), worn with sky high spike heeled boots and a black crop top.

Not boring!

Anyone remember those funny little lace poncho things that just covered your shoulders?

Agree it was the start of fast fashion and shopping in Primark. Pap culture and tabloids were at their high point too so you could see what the stars wore out on their nights out and see detailed pics in Heat magazine which fed the beast more and more.
Just cheesy and tacky as fuck on the UK high street, everyone trying to be Paris, Nicole, Lindsay or Britney. Awful pink and pale everywhere lots of Playboy logos and diamanté stuck on everything. It was the start of Nail bars on the high street and waxing salons as porn culture took hold. Then followed by that LA stylist to the stars Rachel Zoe with her unpronounced e. The giant bug eye sunglasses and overaccessorising with a massive massive extortionate designer shoulder bag that costs thousands of pounds. Then ‘bling’ as a fashion thing just gave us more crap velour street wear on the UK high street. It was the start of fake goods getting really popular which leads to gross over-logoing on all sides. I can’t handle this revival at all.

I disagree that it was all tacky. I remember Jigsaw doing some really lovely stuff - I've still got one of their linen wrap tops somewhere. And French Connection used to do impeccable tailored trousers. White Stuff was still a catalogue at that point, I think, and again some of it was beautifully made.

The trouble is, they're never going to manage to revive that quality for that price point so anyone who remembers it from last time will feel dissatisfied. I don't suppose many teenagers will care about that though.

I remember not noticing the trend to wear black trousers with a block coloured top until I was on an interview panel (Iwas junior and it was for a junior role) and every single young woman wore this. To by eye it was like star trek revisited.

This thread is helpful for me to pick and choose the good bits of Y2K. I do remember the tweed thing which I liked and wore. Also the picot granny vests with lacy edging. And bootcut trousers and jeans. Low waisted everything. I liked that funny Victorian urchin thing of puffed shoulders even on coats and then skinny arms and baker boy caps and skinny and cropped trousers. Kate Moss brought out her own line at TopShop and modelled it in the window in Oxford Circus in London and the footage was on the news bulletins. TopShop was everything. It’s an IKEA shop there now.

Oh yes Top Shop in those days was fabulous. SO exciting going down that escalator.

Lots of velour trackies, baseball caps, double denim, spaghetti straps on very top or one shoulder slash necks. Also remember a lot of embellishments - glitter, diamanté and studs.

Overly embellished and bright coloured cowboy hats and boots. I had a bright pink faux snakeskin pair. What possessed me I do not know!

Plenty of examples to be found here
https://www.msn.com/en-au/lifestyle/style/y2k-fashion-making-a-comeback-a-look-at-the-worst-celebrity-styles-from-the-era

Can't say I'm keen to go back. 😂

As I remember it, there were three big trends:

Off-duty porn star / pre-makeover Pretty Woman—this was your Girls Aloud dresses, pink embellished tracksuits, skyscraper stilettos. You needed Paris Hilton proportions to pull this off, which I did not. In any case, I was a student in a very nerdy town, followed by living in a rural farming area. The occasions didn't arise.

70s Boho revival / California crusty. Broderie peasant tops, knitted ponchos, denim maxi skirts, dangly beaded earrings. I was well into this, because you could combine hight street stuff with vintage, and I was a bit of a hippy nerd in my teens and twenties. I was all about going to comedy gigs in a tie-dye sarong, slouchy jumper, and DMs with rainbow laces. We did not have a massive Top Shop where I lived, but I loved browsing vintage and army surplus stores. It was also the glory days of Fairtrade labels like People Tree, when they did fashion.

The above-mentioned tweedy bias cut / A-line skirts and fitted tops thing—see Rory in Gilmore Girls for the archetype. I did go in for this at one time, but was swiftly disabused of the idea that I was in any way channeling Rory, when a wannabe flatterer behind a shop counter said to me and my friend "you two could be sisters!". We were both 26, but he thought I was her mother. I realised with horror that, unless you are willowy and baby-faced like Alexis Bledel, wearing knee-length tweed in your 20s is a mistake. Or maybe it's just me—I wouldn't wear those skirts now, either. I think you have to be delicate of frame to pull off grandma-core.

I genuinely struggle to remember what I wore around that time, despite being mid-20s and relatively into clothes - so much of it didn't suit my size 14 body (hipster flares with whale tail thongs, velour tracksuits, cropped bustier tops showing off bony hips) that I think I just bought a lot of painfully pointy LK Bennett shoes. Oh, and those metal chain belts Sienna Miller wore.