The early-aughts fashion renaissance arrived, as younger generations sought inspiration from the throwback outfits of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, as well as brands that had their heyday in the 2000s, including Von Dutch, Juicy Couture, and Ed Hardy.The #y2kfashion hashtag has generated more than 220 million views on TikTok while searches for “Y2K” increased 389% year-on-year; moreover the decade’s “It” bag, Fendi’s Baguette bag, increased in pageviews 290% year-on-year.
If TikTok took over social media consumption in 2020, the short-form video app took over the fashion discourse in 2021. Style-specific debates, especially between Gen Z and millennials, took off on the platform. Wide-leg or skinny jeans? It depends on who you ask (and, perhaps, how old they are). According to searches in 2021, baggy jeans reigned supreme with 55% year-on-year growth, with Levi's and Weekday being popular options.
Nostalgia continued to fuel personal style and kidcore is the childhood-like aesthetic that’s all about bright colors, toy-inspired accessories, and clashing prints. This type of playful dressing has grown in the menswear space, worn by the likes of Pete Davidson, Justin Bieber, and Tyler, The Creator. Kidcore-adjacent shoe brand Crocs has been in high demand this year; from January to September seven pairs were sold per day on Lyst.
Inspired by the hit Netflix show Bridgerton, BBC's docu-series on King Henry VIII's reign, and recent Princess Diana-centric films and shows, aesthetes have been fascinated by all things relating to royal fashion. On TikTok, style-savvy users channeled royalcore and princesscore, while celebrities like Bella Hadid, sporting her Dilara Findikoglu "B" necklace (inspired by the same one worn by Tudor Queen Anne Boleyn), drove demand for similar pieces. Over the summer, searches for "tudor" spiked 24%, with Reformation's "Tudor dress" receiving the most pageviews.
In response to last year's cottagecore craze, cabincore took hold over fall wardrobes. The TikTok-driven fashion trend, which blends normcore with gorpcore and cosy, practical knitwear, prefers hikes in the woods and relaxing in a cabin, as opposed to sunny countryside picnics and baking bread. Searches for hiking boots increased 234% year-on-year, and interest in flannel shirts jumped 145%.
