I’m 28 years old and on the trailing edge of the millennial generation. When I was growing up in the late 1990s and early 2000s, all the girls were wearing mini skirts and everyone was relaxing in velour tracksuits or low-rise jeans. Bucket hats weren’t just a staple for the beach.
I was in first or second grade when Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake rocked their now iconic denim-on-denim looks on Hollywood red carpets. I’m sure somewhere in the back of my childhood closet is a mini purse.
Today’s teens and young adults are circling back to the fashion styles that bracketed Y2K. Chattanooga-area thrift stores report brisk business in 1990s fashions which seems to prove the axiom, “what’s old is new again.”
Hit television shows such as HBO’s “Euphoria” have fueled nostalgia for turn-of-the-century fashion. And Chattanooga resale stores such as Plato’s Closet on Hamilton Place Boulevard are brimming with 20-year-old clothing styles.
An article in Cosmopolitan magazine reported earlier this spring: “Everything you loved from the ’90s (ahem, spaghetti straps and bucket hats) – along with everything you weren’t the biggest fan of (knee socks and fanny packs) – are officially back and more stylish than ever.” The magazine’s list of recycled fashions now in vogue includes cardigans, sheer dresses, choker necklaces, thick headbands, Adidas slides, butterfly hair-clips, bike shorts and cargo pants.