Why have people looked the same for the last 20 years?

November 24, 2023 6:32 AM

Compared to the drastic style and aesthetic changes between decades like the 1960s and 80s, looking back on 2003 it doesn’t seem so different.
posted by 1970s Antihero (106 comments total)

I'm a millennial and a college professor so I'm front seat to the current trends among the youths.

The early aughts are back, fashion wise but stuff is definitely different. The women are wearing flares but the waists are all over the place, rise wise; they're also looser fitting. Back in the early 2000s things were strictly low-rise, and tight until the flares. The general style is also much less femme- no pastel make up, thicker brows. Long flat ironed hair with a center part is in again but I've also got students with buzz cuts. Things like glasses are very different too- again, early aughts you had the dark plastic rimmed rectangular thing going on; my students are still going for big round clear plastic. And this is to say nothing about what the non binary students are doing with everything.

Don't get me wrong, the fashion is definitely rhyming with 20 years ago, but it's different. And early 2010s millennial hipster is very much out.
posted by damayanti at 6:57 AM on November 24, 2023 [38 favorites]

I'm not seeing any jeans so low I can see most of their underpants, for which I am grateful.
posted by biffa at 7:03 AM on November 24, 2023 [14 favorites]

Yes I agree with Damayanti. Early 2010s were all about low rise and "skinny" (i.e. tapered to the ankle) jeans and trousers. These days it's high rise and cropped above the ankle - though still tapered. I guess the flares and boot-cut bottoms from the early aughts will be making a comeback in another ten years or so.

Furthermore, there is an ENORMOUS change in the types of bodies featured as fashionable between 2003 to now. While we're still far from any kind of ideal, but can we please have several moments of silence for the way we were gaslit back in the early 2000s about how "fat" and supposedly disgusting Anne Hathaway was in The Devil Wears Prada - and also Kim Catrall in Sex And The City - and also Matthew Perry in, like, Season 3 of Friends - and too many more examples to name? Fatphobia was genuinely off the fucking charts back in those days, enough to make today look good by comparison.
posted by MiraK at 7:04 AM on November 24, 2023 [42 favorites]

Two things that I think are key:

1. Selfies: The records we have of 80s fashion are largely of people dressed up to go out or celebrities or other wealthy people. The records we have today are for more likely to be, just, you know, folks doing stuff. If you go back and look through your own photo albums from the 80s if you have them, I guarantee you can find more than a few photos of people hanging out in jeans and sweatshirts that they could haul out and wear today and not look weird. (Or not look any weirder than they were in the 80s, anyway.)

2. Casualization: ultra casual streetwear is now the dominant fashion for everyday, non-fancy dressing, even in settings that used to require business casual or higher levels of dress. And at the end of the day, a hoodie is a hoodie and jeans are jeans, even if the rise or the fit changes over time.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:06 AM on November 24, 2023 [31 favorites]

This has been one of my personal obsessions for a few years now! It’s an overstatement to say that nothing in clothes or hairstyles are different or mark it as “the past”, but the changes have definitely become more subtle.

My personal theory is that there now exists a broader palette of accepted ways to express personality through the body: tattoos, piercings, hair color, and thus people are less inclined to chase fashion trends.
posted by rhymedirective at 7:20 AM on November 24, 2023 [23 favorites]

In the video linked to in the article the jeans are much less fitted than jeans today. For the men, the shirts are uniformly tucked in with visible chunky belts and have an almost complete lack of patterns. The sneakers are mostly monochrome, too. None of that is much seen today. For the women, there is a complete lack of athleisure, which is just obviously not on trend.

In all cases the colors are generally muted and the cuts are fairly conservative.

(There is also a marked absence of tattoos, piercings and variety in hairstyles, if you want to throw those variables in too.)

The claim that older generations had trendy haircuts or makeup styles is laughably false. No open over 30 in the mi-80s went around looking like Adam Ant, Boy George or even Duran Duran (obvs there were some small exceptions, but these looks were not common in the more mature crowd).

Finally, white, middle-clas, college-aged fashion is not the whole of the fashion world. While it may be true that said demographic is less cohesive fashion-wise that does not make the foundation for a broader claim.
posted by oddman at 7:23 AM on November 24, 2023 [5 favorites]

I'm not sure (but then I live in the UK and we're very fast fashion oriented). There have been some very ubiquitous outfits. If I saw a photo of someone wearing skinny jeans, a breton striped top, knee length boots and a scarf, together with a blazor or gilet, that would date it to around 2010-2012. On the other hand, a floral midi dress with trainers is very 2018-2022. And a strappy top and low rise jeans is very 2003.

Women's jeans have varied significantly in that time period, although the 2003 look has come back round again. But higher rise. Much like flares came back as bootlegs but not exactly the same. Eyebrows are very different (it's different that they've been important) than they were 20 years ago. Ballet flats came and went. I think brogues may be on their way out. Heels and platforms on shoes have varied significantly.

Jeans and hoodies are a very late 20th/early 21st century thing and hard to date beyond that. But then a white t-shirt and jeans combo on a short-haired man has been difficult to date since the 50s.
posted by plonkee at 7:27 AM on November 24, 2023 [10 favorites]

but can we please have several moments of silence for the way we were gaslit back in the early 2000s about how "fat" and supposedly disgusting Anne Hathaway was in The Devil Wears Prada

Wasn't that just a running joke in the movie about how weird fashion people were? There were several examples of women in the public eye during that era that I do recall who gained some weight and were subjected to ridicule for it in a way they wouldn't be now, at least for the amount of weight they gained.
posted by Selena777 at 7:38 AM on November 24, 2023 [6 favorites]

Written by someone who wasn’t alive 20 years ago. Using TV shows or magazine layouts as “proof” isn’t the same as looking at actual casual, unposed photos of everyday people.
posted by Ideefixe at 7:38 AM on November 24, 2023 [7 favorites]

I just had Thanksgiving dinner yesterday with my nieces in their early twenties and they were all wearing the huge stupid cargo pants I bought with my allowance money in 1998. I will never again don pants so big they fully cover my shoes, so I guess I'm through with trying to wear anything like what's in style.
posted by potrzebie at 7:40 AM on November 24, 2023 [6 favorites]

I feel strongly that anyone who believes fashion hasn't changed since 2003 was not a teen girl in 2003. Clicking through to the article byline, I estimate that this writer was born ca. 2000, so bingo.

I don't know how anyone who came of age in the era of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton (specifically in re their press coverage) made it out alive. Fashion trends have moved and cycled plenty, but like a few commenters said above: the attitudes, and who are fashion trends for, has experienced a revolution.

p.s. I went and bought all the stupid baggy pants my mom didn't let me wear in 1998 as soon as they hit stores again.
posted by phunniemee at 7:44 AM on November 24, 2023 [19 favorites]

I think the author may have a point that fashion trends are kind of stagnating or something, but this... "If you think about the 80s, everyone had a “trendy” haircut, even your parents and grandparents."

Nope. So very much nope. My grandfather had the same haircut in the 80s that he had in the 60s and pretty much had until he died until 2007, just with a little less hair and a little more grey.

My dad just had long hair. My mother might've tried for trendy, but generally speaking... no. Same for my teachers, generally.

At any rate, I'm glad to be firmly at an age where I just don't care about trends – the only way I'm affected by trends is that during the lamentable low-rise jeans period it was hard AF to find decent jeans that fit the way I like. Relaxed fit all the way, with ample room in the seat and thighs, thanks.
posted by jzb at 7:45 AM on November 24, 2023 [12 favorites]

I just finished listening to an audiobook of Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities. There's a lot going on in the book but one way of describing it is a 2000-page running gag in that it is set from summer 1913-spring 1914 in Vienna and everyone's life is about to be destroyed WWI and no one knows it. Musil's narrator keeps a completely straight face throughout, never looking forward or forecasting in any way; there is no "General Stumm will be dead in two years" or "If they only knew how futile these preparations for the Kaiser's anniversary would turn out to be!"

With one exception: Musil cannot resist commenting at several points on how weird his characters would find 1920s women's fashion. Boyish haircuts and short flapper dresses are the one part of post-WWI Europe that so imposes itself on his attention that he works it in.

I find it very plausible that North American and Western European fashion have changed less in the last twenty years than in 1910-1930 or 1950-1970 because society, and maybe particularly the economy of textiles and clothing production, have changed less in the last two decades than during those earlier periods.
posted by sy at 7:49 AM on November 24, 2023 [13 favorites]

One thing that’s happened is that there is a much wider spread of accepted fashion - whereas the 90s/ 2000s had significant “looks” that defined a year (the Rachel haircut, for example) now I see a much wider set of fashionable choices for people.
posted by The River Ivel at 8:01 AM on November 24, 2023 [14 favorites]

The claim that older generations had trendy haircuts or makeup styles is laughably false. No open over 30 in the mi-80s went around looking like Adam Ant, Boy George or even Duran Duran (obvs there were some small exceptions, but these looks were not common in the more mature crowd).

This is the peril of writing about past fashions when you're 23 and - I bet - were not, eg, a historical fashion major. What this person means is that when they look back at adults in 1983, the adults' haircuts have elements of haircuts that have been ironically fashionable or even genuinely retro-fashionable since, so the writer reads them as "trendy". Adult haircuts in 1983 were different from adult haircuts in 1973 or the present, but they were not trendy youth haircuts.

If anything, I'd say that grown-up women's haircuts now are much more "trendy" in the sense that they are less differentiated from teen cuts. If you're a young adult straight white woman, for instance, sure, you can have a mullet or a wolf cut or some other very directional hairstyle, but for the most part you're going to have sorta-longish straight hair, possibly with bangs. And your aunt in her thirties is going to have sorta-longish straight hair, possibly with bangs, and so is your mother in her forties, and your mom's cousin in her fifties is going to have the longest hair she can grow, depending on her hair health as she ages, possibly with bangs. Probably your grandmother will have shorter hair, but if her hair health permits, she too will have a long bob, possibly with bangs.

If there's one real difference in women's hairstyles between now and the 20th century, it is the almost complete disappearance of short hair on straight women. From the twenties onward, there was always at least one popular genuine short haircut going around, but since about the late nineties, the only straight women with truly short hair (like, shorter than a chin-length bob) are women whose hair simply won't grow longer or women trying out a super trendy buzz cut or other unusual style.

My belief is that this is because of the greater visibility of queer women. As long as it was virtually impossible to be an out of the closet queer woman, really short hair couldn't possibly mean that you were queer, unless you lived in a large city with a semi-visible queer community, because everyone assumed that no one would be reckless enough to be both queer and visible. So straight women could have really short hair without worrying that people would think they were queer. Now that you can indeed be an out queer woman with a cool haircut, straight women who want to signal straightness to men must have long hair. I mean, I don't think this is how things should work, but homophobia is the underpinning of society even if people don't, eg, individually hate queer people. On a fashion level it's a shame, because short hair looks really good on a lot of people and long hair requires a lot of effort.
posted by Frowner at 8:04 AM on November 24, 2023 [43 favorites]

I teach at a college and have noticed a resurgence of what I would broadly characterize as a “Hot Topic” aesthetic among some of my students (primarily the women, I think). It makes me very happy tbh.

I bought a pair of non-skinny jeans for the first time in about a decade
posted by dismas at 8:05 AM on November 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

I think a major factor is one that’s noted in the article- I have not had to update the trends that I locked into in my early twenties because those men’s clothes (skinny jeans, flannel shirts, etc) are still universally available even though apparently skinny jeans on men are super passé (I think? I too have no idea what fashion is).

I think some trends, or at least big changes, from twenty years ago is that piercings, tattoos, and non-natural hair colors are considered completely uncontroversial for everyone, and makeup for men is almost completely in the norm. I’m a very conservatively-dressed 40-year-old gay guy and the urge to paint my nails sky blue is almost overwhelming at this point.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 8:11 AM on November 24, 2023 [14 favorites]

Frowner, does it seem like older straight women are bucking the tradition of going shorter and more utilitarian as well?
posted by Selena777 at 8:12 AM on November 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

I have zero eye for women's clothes, but for men there's definitely been less change 2003-2023 vs. 1983-2003. A 2003 outfit for a situation can be worn in 2023 for the same situation (sporting, casual, business, etc.) and no one will bat an eye. Ditto 2003 haircuts. The only things in my closet in 2003 I couldn't wear today are a couple of contrast-collar-and-cuff french cuff dress shirts that I bought in the late 90s and that were probably out of date even then. You absolutely could not say that about 2003 vs 1983.
posted by MattD at 8:25 AM on November 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

I was a teenager in the 1980s. I can remember lots of conversations about how fashions in the 1960s/1970s (i.e., what we knew from a mix of movies/TV and also from parents and older siblings) were so distinctive, but that fashion now (i.e., in the mid/late 1980s) was completely lacking in identity.

Whereas now, you can look at a photo or video from that period (like Heavy Metal Parking Lot) and instantly mark the time it is from. So my prediction is that twenty years from now, it won't be at all hard to tell photos from the early 2000s versus photos from 2023, despite the commonalities that run through both.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:31 AM on November 24, 2023 [10 favorites]

My personal theory is that there now exists a broader palette of accepted ways to express personality through the body: tattoos, piercings, hair color, and thus people are less inclined to chase fashion trends.

Let's not forget the beards that popped up over the past decade or so.
posted by gtrwolf at 8:37 AM on November 24, 2023 [7 favorites]

If there's one real difference in women's hairstyles between now and the 20th century, it is the almost complete disappearance of short hair on straight women.

If I may offer a counterpoint: the "karen" haircut.

Now (just within the latter part of this past decade) women are running so scared of looking like "a karen" that it's considered dangerous to cut your hair above chin length at all. Does that sound hyperbolic? Don't believe me? Look at my last two hair asks right here on good ol metafilter.

something something Hey you got your homophobia in my misogyny! You got your misogyny in my homophobia!
posted by phunniemee at 8:38 AM on November 24, 2023 [26 favorites]

I think there are two fairly obvious contributing factors, that play into this. The first is that the hipster subculture goes mainstream in the early 00s, with its focus on reusing stuff and handcrafts, and no other subculture has since eclipsed it. It’s not even really a subculture anymore, it’s just the culture.

The second factor is that 20 years ago cellphones have become non-negotiable parts of modern life, and that eats a good chunk of young people’s disposable income, which means they have less money for fashion, especially since fashion conscious youths need expensive phones.
posted by Kattullus at 8:54 AM on November 24, 2023 [5 favorites]

> for men there's definitely been less change 2003-2023 vs. 1983-2003.

I think that's because 1960s-1980s were something of an outlier in men's fashion, in the 20th century onwards. The shape and cut and styling of men's clothes haven't changed much in the past 120 years EXCEPT in those two decades. (The formality and contextual dress codes have changed, but that's not the same thing.) A man's suit from 1920 is the same as a man's suit in 2020, pretty much, not even in an ironic or retro way. As someone else noted upthread, a tee shirt or flannel shirt with blue jeans can help you time travel across almost a century without anyone raising eyebrows at you.

The groovy baby boomer teen/young adult fashions were so aspirational and so cool as a way for men to get their peacock on, and for a hot second there during the early 1980s it seemed like men's fashions would expand to more colors and even feminine stylings, but that blipped out. I keep hoping that'll happen.
posted by MiraK at 8:54 AM on November 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

At least for men, the insanely baggy suits of 2003 would not fly today.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 8:54 AM on November 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

At least for men, the insanely baggy suits of 2003 would not fly today.

I was rewatching a season of The Wire earlier this year, and was struck by not just the baggy suits but also how puffy/voluminous most of the men's button-up shirts were.

The shape or profile of men's clothes has definitely changed in the last twenty years, with much tighter fits (like those tight sweatpants, say) and more high-water pants (even if not as abbreviated as a Thom Browne suit).
posted by Dip Flash at 9:05 AM on November 24, 2023 [7 favorites]

What about the death of traditional media? It seemed like newspapers and magazines and to some extent TV and movies were big influencers and would decide what people should wear at that point in time.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:07 AM on November 24, 2023 [14 favorites]

There are definitely some trends that have come and gone in the past ~20 years. In men's fashion, there was a moment where wearing a completely monochrome outfit—blue suit, blue tie, blue shirt, all the same shade—was in. I think that was the late 90s/early oughts, but that look is very much pegged to a specific moment. Man buns were in during the early teens. They're still around, but not nearly as common. Cold-shoulder tops for women were in around 2015 (?) but disappeared quickly. And so on. Prairie dresses had a moment right before the pandemic, I think.

There are also numerous subcultures that are all doing their own thing (sometimes some fashion element from one bleeds over into the broader culture), so there is less of a mainstream to be a part of today than there was in the 90s or before. I think we're more accustomed to a wider variation in subculture styles (this will depend on where you live).

I think that—with some exceptions—it is fair to say that someone in mainstream 50s fashion would have looked out of place in the 70s, likewise 70s-to-90s. Less so going from the early oughts to today. But that's not to say that there haven't been fads and trends in the meantime.

Somewhat tangent to this, I feel like a big element in popular fashion has been resurrecting whatever era the kids are just a little too young to remember firsthand. A big element of 80s fashion was rehashing the 50s. I remember going to a party in the 90s where all the young women (in their 20s) looked like they were straight out of the late 60s (apart from their hair). So at some point, it becomes hard to tell whether a picture of someone is showing them in a styles first go-round or they're wearing retro fashion.
posted by adamrice at 9:12 AM on November 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

I mean, I'm still wearing some of the same clothes I had from 20 years ago, so
posted by jscalzi at 9:19 AM on November 24, 2023 [20 favorites]

I mean, I'm still wearing some of the same clothes I had from 20 years ago, so

old man's wardrobe
posted by phunniemee at 9:22 AM on November 24, 2023 [101 favorites]

I'm amused that no one follows fashion anymore, but those who would have in the past are instead now required to choose an aesthetic. Are you Dark Academia? Goblincore? It's cool to have so many more choices than preppie/stoner/punk.
posted by rikschell at 9:26 AM on November 24, 2023 [13 favorites]

I remember a Thanksgiving conversation about fifteen years ago about an article making basicallly this same argument. Maybe in the New Yorker? By a guy named John something? But maybe he was claiming culture as a whole had frozen, music included. But on closer inspection he was pretty much just refering to male hipster culture. I've tried finding that article since then without luck. Anybody else remember this?
posted by St. Oops at 9:26 AM on November 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

Part of this is that everyone is used to fast-fashion pricing, and to keep costs at that level, the only two realistic options for clothes are "tight and stretchy" and "loose and baggy". Anything else is more expensive to manufacture, and will fit fewer people well.

The manufacturing expense is partly due to how many layers of fabric you can cut at once, per an acquaintance in the industry. If you can stack the fabric higher, you can cut out more parts in one go, but the weight of the fabric will stretch and distort individual layers in inconsistent ways. So the styles need to be forgiving. (Also why if you go to cheaper clothing stores, you can try on ten pairs of jeans in the same nominal size, but they will all fit differently.)
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 9:27 AM on November 24, 2023 [12 favorites]

My grandfather had the same haircut in the 80s that he had in the 60s and pretty much had until he died until 2007, just with a little less hair and a little more grey.

Now, Johnny Unitas — there’s a haircut you could set your watch to.
posted by AndrewInDC at 9:30 AM on November 24, 2023 [8 favorites]

I think that's because 1960s-1980s were something of an outlier in men's fashion, in the 20th century onwards. The shape and cut and styling of men's clothes haven't changed much in the past 120 years EXCEPT in those two decades. (The formality and contextual dress codes have changed, but that's not the same thing.) A man's suit from 1920 is the same as a man's suit in 2020, pretty much, not even in an ironic or retro way.

That's an important point. I have family pictures from before WWI, both formal studio portraits and more casual outdoor shots (think picnics).

The men are wearing outfits that would not be out of place today: suits, ties, shirts, pants. I'd say the only items that really stand out are the stiff collars and cuffs and vests (although I own a vested suit today). But the women? Edwardian style dresses with shirtwaists and petticoats, huge hats, buttoned gloves. We have pictures of some of the same women 25 years later and they've completely abandoned those outfits. The speed of change during that quarter-century is remarkable even today.
posted by fortitude25 at 9:32 AM on November 24, 2023 [10 favorites]

We’re also in the most historically minded era in the US since at least WW II.

A huge part of our cultural moment is looking back at the past 75-100 years and asking “what the hell was that?” And young people today seem way more informed about everything from Stonewall, Reconstruction, and the Homestead Strike to ‘70s New Hollywood, punk, ‘90s diet culture, and motown than most people were about anything historical at that age 20-30 years ago.

A big part of the appeal, I think, of ‘80s mall photos is the unironic guilelessness of everyone pictured, which is ultimately the quality that people both hate and love about Americans.
posted by smelendez at 9:32 AM on November 24, 2023 [10 favorites]

since about the late nineties, the only straight women with truly short hair (like, shorter than a chin-length bob) are women whose hair simply won't grow longer or women trying out a super trendy buzz cut or other unusual style.

uhh... maybe that's regional, or maybe some of the people you assume are queer/naturally short haired/super trendy aren't actually any of the above (waves hi)


I think there have been some pretty distinct makeup trends in the past 20 years (remember the platinum-blond hair/racoon eye makeup combination?) And the leggings situation has definitely evolved. (ETA: also facial hair for men, and the prevalence of tattoos)
posted by trig at 9:35 AM on November 24, 2023 [11 favorites]

At least for men, the insanely baggy suits of 2003 would not fly today.

Bagginess is coming back (actually, I'd argue it's already here in many respects). Big baggy suits are already fashionable in Japanese streetwear/fashion (see here) so it's just a matter of time over here. See also this tweet.
posted by thebots at 9:49 AM on November 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

I remember a Thanksgiving conversation about fifteen years ago about an article making basicallly this same argument.
I remember this, but more recently, maybe a decade ago. The theory was that fashion was slowing down because our brains have to catch up on technology instead.

There has been a lot of consistency in fashion over the last 25 years. I used to work in tourism, and tourist boards once upon a time had to refresh their photos every 3-5 years so the fashions wouldn't look dated. Now the fashions of 20 years ago still pass, which means those expensive photo investments don't have to happen as often.
posted by rednikki at 9:55 AM on November 24, 2023 [7 favorites]

I am a 50-year old man and I miss mens clothes that aren't snug. Not all of us go to the gym, and I could do with some drape to conceal my shape.

Luckily LLBean is there for me, as they have been since I was about 18.

But the slimfit men's suits with highwater pants, worn with those caramel-colored shoes: feh! Bring back a little more room to move, and lose the tan shoes.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:56 AM on November 24, 2023 [11 favorites]

I attended like three conferences in a row earlier this year all MC'd by young women in enormous, brightly colored baggy David Byrne suits. It was uncanny. Like someone had declared that this was the official uniform of this very visible role.
posted by St. Oops at 10:00 AM on November 24, 2023 [6 favorites]

I'm in my mid-40s and the spousal unit is 50--both of us Gen X high school weirdos in our respective hometowns--and when I see pictures of our parents at our current ages, oh, it is so very very different. Our parents look a lot more formal even when they wear casual clothes in those pictures. It's wild! But I love that my own middle age gets to be different and more expressive. I didn't have to grow out of being weird to be a fully functioning adult, something that other adults assured me I would need to do when I was a kid.
posted by Kitteh at 10:00 AM on November 24, 2023 [8 favorites]

I think St. Oops and rednikki are referring to Hipster – The End of Western Civilization by Douglas Haddow and its ensuing thread.
posted by Kattullus at 10:06 AM on November 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

…for men there's definitely been less change 2003-2023 vs. 1983-2003… Ditto 2003 haircuts.

Anyone remember frosted tips? I started high school in 2000 so that’s an easy way to remember for me and oh yeah all the boys had short hair with frosted tips.

From what I can see now (and I am horrified, the same way people get horrified over fashion from the 80s) is that the 90s is coming back, but not grunge yet. Crop tops, and the rise is getting lower (I’m seeing belly buttons again!). It’s either very skimpy or totally baggy. Bucket hats, furry textures, etc. And I think it is actually about the right time for that to make a comeback, 30 years seems about right for that. I do seem to remember some 80s briefly making a comeback in the mid 2010s.

I wonder if now feels so similar to the 2000s is because it’s almost felt like the same decade for 20 years? Same people in power, same issues not solved, mostly only technology is changed. Cell phones and texting did exist, AIM for our social media. Maybe things will be more distinct now that we’re entering decades that can be named again. It’s just so awkward to say the 2000s or 2010s that they don’t actually feel distinct to me.
posted by LizBoBiz at 11:10 AM on November 24, 2023

Anyone remember frosted tips?

Does my dentist count
posted by pxe2000 at 11:35 AM on November 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

2. Casualization: ultra casual streetwear is now the dominant fashion for everyday, non-fancy dressing, even in settings that used to require business casual or higher levels of dress.

I agree also Spandex? I mean, spandex definitely existed since the 60's, but now it is in everything, seems like.
posted by eustatic at 11:57 AM on November 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

IMO: Athletisure vs jeans delineates the earlier period. People back then wore sweat pants or jammie bottoms, but it's acceptance was much more limited. In my kids' jr high, few girls wear jeans vs athletisure or leggings. Boys less so, but that's also changing.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:00 PM on November 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

Also colored hair is way more acceptable, even among young kids, and any sex.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:01 PM on November 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

It used to be basically only jeans when you weren't Dressed Up, but now sweat pants (or athleisure) are ubiquitous, and jeans have moved up the fashion hierarchy.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:06 PM on November 24, 2023 [7 favorites]

Yeah my son wore standard blue jeans with a tshirt and blazer to a high school dance - because apparently jeans are "formal" now? Definitely a sign of the times, as are sneakers with formal dresses (which 75% of the girls were wearing, some of them bedazzled! which is absolutely charming).

PS: I know a lot of Gen Z kids with frosted tips, if we're keeping track. IDK if we're just behind the times here in upstate NY or if the frosting never went away.
posted by MiraK at 1:31 PM on November 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

and lose the tan shoes.

come join me over here in the chunky cherry red Fluevog brogue section my friend
posted by elkevelvet at 1:41 PM on November 24, 2023 [7 favorites]

I'm amused - the clothing and hairstyles in that video look very little like either what I remember from the early 2000s or the present.

But then... I'm in the Pacific Northwest. So to me, that video has people that are entirely too dressed up.
posted by stormyteal at 1:45 PM on November 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

my prediction is that twenty years from now, it won't be at all hard to tell photos from the early 2000s versus photos from 2023, despite the commonalities that run through both.

This is absolutely it. In 20 years certain characteristics out of the current mishmosh of them will have been identified in cultural memory as belonging to this particular period and we will see them in photos of this period, much more clearly retroactively than we do now.

Jeans vs. athleisure will almost certainly be one of the divides, though. My most old-fartiest clothing opinion is surely "leggings are not pants."
posted by praemunire at 1:49 PM on November 24, 2023 [11 favorites]

Also colored hair is way more acceptable, even among young kids, and any sex.

Something I adore is that Crayola colored hair is becoming way more acceptable in women in their 50s or later -- little old ladies with lilac purple, fuschia, and blue (not 1950s-grandma blue but BLUE) hair.

I'm a little biased because my 60 year old wife has had a macklemore-style haircut (long on top, shaved sides) and deep rich purple hair for almost a decade now, she's a trendsetter.
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:52 PM on November 24, 2023 [12 favorites]

The lack of any visible tattoo peaking out of even one of those collars is far more 2003 than 2023.
posted by y2karl at 2:00 PM on November 24, 2023 [5 favorites]

This is a fairly testable hypothesis, yes? Get a bunch of known-date photos, process them to remove color balance and grain size clues, and ask people to guess the dates.

Since I’m not doing that either, I will blithely hypothesize that "now" is now contemporaneous with the digital camera, because we see all the digital photos mixed up together, all making our sense of what people are doing now.
posted by clew at 2:04 PM on November 24, 2023

Chronophoto (previously ) is not correcting for color and grain but otherwise is exactly that, and it is noticeable that past the late 90s it gets harder except for seeing when people start walking around with phones and earbuds, and 2020-1 when people have masks
posted by Jon_Evil at 2:11 PM on November 24, 2023 [7 favorites]

Something I adore is that Crayola colored hair is becoming way more acceptable in women in their 50s or later -- little old ladies with lilac purple, fuschia, and blue (not 1950s-grandma blue but BLUE) hair.

I'm a little biased because my 60 year old wife has had a macklemore-style haircut (long on top, shaved sides) and deep rich purple hair for almost a decade now, she's a trendsetter.

I first encountered this trend in 2009 in Quebec. It was de rigeur for women over 60 to have the most brilliantly coloured hair mixed with white or silver. Enough that I still stick with that as a descriptor: "Uh, I'd say she's definitely over X age. She's got that Quebec old lady hair."

Hand to god, I did NOT see it here in Ontario on the reg until a few years ago. Damn English stealing French culture again. ;)
posted by Kitteh at 2:13 PM on November 24, 2023 [12 favorites]

That severe side-part haircut for men, somewhere between JFK and a Hitler Youth, that one was nowhere in 2003. Is it over yet? I hope so.
posted by gimonca at 3:26 PM on November 24, 2023 [7 favorites]

Nah, the local middleschooler who knocked over one of my snow poles has the Almost-Hitler Hair. It ain't gone, unfortunately.
posted by wenestvedt at 3:37 PM on November 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

Young Bieber hair is, though.
posted by trig at 3:41 PM on November 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

Except as a band name.
posted by y2karl at 3:56 PM on November 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

I think the author may have a point that fashion trends are kind of stagnating or something, but this... "If you think about the 80s, everyone had a “trendy” haircut, even your parents and grandparents."

This mentality is a great way that young people (young enough to have missed the 1980s) tell on themselves. Look at any "80s" themed event and notice how much Day-Glo spandex and leg warmers and crimped hair turns up. I get that those things are fun to wear and that it's a shorthand for the look of the decade, but you'd only get that aesthetic from watching Saved By the Bell or by looking at other, identical "80s" parties.

Everybody knows that the actual 1980s had people wearing more gray and khaki than Day-Glo in their everyday lives. And haircuts were more likely to be regionally consistent (ie how many people in rural areas have similar-looking bangs and highlights) than cutting-edge sculptural Flock of Seagulls looks.

I get that it's much more fun and interesting to go wild. But most people looked more like Morris Day than Wendy & Lisa (or people in their audience).
posted by knotty knots at 4:37 PM on November 24, 2023 [6 favorites]

I think there are definitely transformational moments, fashion paradigm shifts, that are just no longer happening at all.

I think the pooh poohing of the idea in this thread is probably related to the age and demographic similarity of the participants in the thread.

The fracture of media beginning roughly twenty years ago means there aren't trends really anymore because there aren't trendsetters. Not enough people consume the same media to be influenced in the same way.

I think this also explains a lot of our politics -- the biggest cohesive media/consumerist bloc is the bloc currently running everything into the ground.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:53 PM on November 24, 2023 [8 favorites]

I remember a Thanksgiving conversation about fifteen years ago about an article making basicallly this same argument. Maybe in the New Yorker? By a guy named John something? But maybe he was claiming culture as a whole had frozen, music included. But on closer inspection he was pretty much just refering to male hipster culture. I've tried finding that article since then without luck. Anybody else remember this?

Is this your card? Vanity Fair, eleven years ago, and it’s about the stasis from 1991 to 2011, compared to dramatic shifts if you looked at 1971, 1951, 1931, and 1911.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:51 PM on November 24, 2023 [5 favorites]

I think the pooh poohing of the idea in this thread is probably related to the age and demographic similarity of the participants in the thread.

IDK, I'd say that the age of the people in this thread means that the people were there, and can compare. It's one of the advantages of getting old.

Also, 'army' referencing clothes for dudes wasn't a thing in 2002 (gruntwear tshirts etc). Somebody created that trend, ergo there still are trendsetters, even if there are more than one (which I assume you are vaguely surmising) - meaning one for conservatives and one for liberals.
posted by The_Vegetables at 6:55 PM on November 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

I'm pretty sure camo attire was a thing in 2002, but even then the vibe was basically black trenchcoat mafia lite.
posted by pwnguin at 7:20 PM on November 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

Is this your card?
Yes! Thank you ricochet biscuit! Kurt Andersen, you'd think I would have remembered that.
posted by St. Oops at 9:35 PM on November 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

What I need to know is if the suit I (foolishly and expensively) bought in 1997 could still be worn without marking me as some sort of total dork. It's a black, italian-made suit I don't have the fashion knowledge to describe. (If Nicole Kidman ever returns my call, it's all I have to wear.)
posted by maxwelton at 9:36 PM on November 24, 2023

And here’s the MetaFilter thread about Anderson’s article.
posted by Kattullus at 11:27 PM on November 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

My friend W. David Marx researched and wrote a whole book partly to answer this question: “Status & Culture.” Not as immediately glamorous as “Ametora,” but an interesting analysis.

We live in a paradise of options, and the diminished power of gatekeepers has allowed more voices to flourish. The question is simply whether internet content can fulfill our basic human needs for status distinction. Many will be jubilant at this development, but reduced status value has negative downstream effects. Elites are less likely to adopt as many cultural innovations, which means fewer fashion trends to be diffused. When a trend evaporates as a superficial fad, there may not be enough collective memory for it to take on historical value, either. We’ll never equate the half-baked electroclash genre of 2001 with the four-year-long grunge movement that transformed the nineties.

posted by No-sword at 11:43 PM on November 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

Some young people in Berlin are making an effort to bring back those ugly, early 90s “Cosby” sweaters.
posted by brachiopod at 12:33 AM on November 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Maybe the clothes have not evolved much, but the places where we can wear specific outfits have changed a lot. You can still wear a suit to go and work in the office, but most people wear a casual version of business casual. Luxury has also changed places. You can now get ultra comfortable merino underwear, an unheard of luxury in my youth. Yet the merino wool undies follow the same patterns of Y fronts and boxers. How did I come around to writing about forms of underwear?
posted by SnowRottie at 1:07 AM on November 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

What I need to know is if the suit I (foolishly and expensively) bought in 1997 could still be worn without marking me as some sort of total dork.

Probably not. Fashion in suits changes slowly, but it does change. The baggy style popular in the last 90s may be coming back in again and you could get away with it. But the chances are still high that it will look like an out of date suit. Vintage is hard to do if you're not actually following fashion.
posted by plonkee at 1:13 AM on November 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Mod note: [btw, this post has been added to the sidebar and Best Of blog]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:33 AM on November 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

What I need to know is if the suit I (foolishly and expensively) bought in 1997 could still be worn without marking me as some sort of total dork.

It depends on the suit and how it still fits you. Honestly, unless you bought a really dramatically looose suit or are planning to wear it around menswear forum types, it may very well do if you take it to a tailor to make sure it fits you as your body is now.

For one thing, looser fits are coming back in, so a relatively conservatively cut nineties suit might work well, and for another, the average person doesn't notice a men's suit looking dated unless it looks markedly, markedly different from the contemporary cut. Consider the last time that you went to, eg, a church service or some kind of suit-wearing event attended by a broad range of types and ages - do you really think that everyone from the thirty-five-ish ex-jock suburban realtor to the retired English teacher had a contemporary suit?

Again, unless you have a very dressy crowd, most men are either wearing almost entirely untailored Men's Wearhouse specials pooling around the shoes, their wedding suit regardless of if it still fits well or a nice suit that they got years ago. And yet, unless you are a Menswear Person you probably didn't really notice. I am a little bit of a menswear person and I don't actually care that much myself, because while it's fun to look at really nice suits, whether online or in person, when you're looking at an actual human at an actual event, you're focused on the gestalt - who are they? do they look kind? happy? interesting? - and not the minutiae of the clothes.

Suits are a lot of fun if you like them, but also a real pain if you have to wear them when you don't want to - even cheap ones are far more expensive than, eg, nice pants and a well-fitting casual shirt; unless you're very trim and have a well-fitting suit they restrict your movement a bit; they are a pain to clean; you need a correctly fitting coat to wear over them if it's cold; you can't really carry a backpack because it wrecks the shoulder, etc etc etc. (I want to add that if you look back at, eg, vegetable stall workers in 1900 wearing suits while hauling vegetables, a.) that was a physically miserable life; b:) those suits were cut and fit very differently even though they broadly resemble contemporary suits.)

So anyway - if you're serious about the suit, evaluate. When you say it was expensive, was it...uh, rich person expensive or "I really resent having the spend $600 right now on something I will wear once"? Was the maker a real individual tailor, a boutique, a fashion name? Are the materials good and how have they held up? How does it fit now? Your body has probably changed in the last twenty-five years even if you're still more or less the same size - a good suit will have enough material in the seams that it can be let out a bit if needed, for instance. If you have a high-waisted suit with moderately pleated full-leg pants and a relatively conventional jacket in a good wool, congratulations, you just won the on-trend lottery, go now and have it retailored.

Also, if you're going to be a Suit Guy in a non-suit social circle, you can wear pretty much any suit you please because you're going to stand out anyway. Sheer comedy powder-blue suits with ruffled shirts will read differently than, eg, a country tweed from 1985, of course.

If you want to see a guy who wears some beautiful old suits (along with beautiful new suits), try this interview with Yukio Akamine. Bruce Boyer is another fellow who has all his old suits. Of course, both of those guys really care about suits and have had careers in fashion and have plenty of money, so they have such suits as you or I can only dream about - but still, you don't look at them and think, "where is their shrunken silhouette Thom Browne jacket".
posted by Frowner at 5:30 AM on November 25, 2023 [11 favorites]

Also if for some reason you got a really unusual nineties suit - like a lapel-less one or a nehru collar or something and it is in a nice fabric - you can wear it more or less as-is. That's the equivalent of, like, having early Rick Owens or women's lagenlook fashion. It's not truly "timeless" in the sense that someone will definitely be dressing like that in fifty years, but arty clothing stays arty much longer than fashionable clothing stays fashionable.
posted by Frowner at 5:50 AM on November 25, 2023 [8 favorites]

I am a 50-year old man and I miss mens clothes that aren't snug. Not all of us go to the gym, and I could do with some drape to conceal my shape.

I am right there with you. I’ve got a dad belly, so none of this “fitted” look is going to work with what I got. I miss the looser fitting fashions.
posted by Fleebnork at 5:54 AM on November 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

One thing I wonder about is whether this has something to do with more restrictive gender roles for straight men and women. Frowner and phunniemee’s observations above about the disappearance of short hair on straight women is astute, and I think similar patterns can be seen with men, where anything that could be considered flamboyant has been excised from mainstream menswear. That happens slowly over the course of the 90s, and by the early 00s it’s almost completely gone.
posted by Kattullus at 5:57 AM on November 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

So where do people go to get inspiration for fashion now?

In 1880 they went to London or Paris - the wealthy went there and brought back the designs, and the middle class looked at what the wealthy were wearing and adjusted as much as they could to follow it.

During the very earliest part of the twentieth century the influences that made a big impact was the same London-and-Paris looks, but also the black community with the spread of Jazz and that culture. The movies was a big source of information on how interesting people dressed, and the longer film has been out the more it has become our primary source of ideas.

Curiously one trend during the first decades of the last century was for women to reject the custom for your skirts to drop and your hair to be put up when you transitioned to adulthood. They had gotten used to short skirts and short hair as girls, and they liked the freedom it gave them, so they retained those things. There was a big trend in infantilization - this era brings us the casual use of "boyfriend and girlfriend" and the word "Baby" as an endearment. One male writer of the time reported that the one most sexy thing a young woman could do was to use baby talk. The men returning from the first world war were confronted with dauntingly independent women invading their spheres but were also desperate to get away from the all male environment of the armed forces. Women interacting with them while role playing little girls was a good compromise. The men happily adopted baby talk in intimate moments too. Baby talk meant you could be sexy AND be a good girl.

During the Depression clothes became practical and weren't upgraded to new styles very often. If you needed to follow hemline trends you simply put your hems up or turned them down again, and clothes were relatively baggy, allowing freedom of movement for work.

During the WWII austerities you got extremely tight and close fitting tailored clothes the better to save on fabric and for women find a way to convert clothing previously belonging to men who had gone into uniform into female tailored clothing of their own. A big change here was that now women did their own tailoring, where previously they had someone else do it for them. Otherwise you continued the Depression era trends of whatever was the most practical value for money, and women wearing men's clothing to work in.

Post-war the young people became Teddy Boys and Teddy Girls and wore the second hand suits without tailoring them. But London-and-Paris and copying the styles of classes higher than your own started to become much less of a thing. The Western world was experiencing globalization. They imitated the casual look of soldiers relaxing. They dropped the colour of the uniforms - no returning soldier wanted to remain in khaki or air force blue or navy whites - and took their fashion choices from magazines, news clips and all those movies set in glamour locations like Italy and Hollywood. When they did copy the London-and-Paris look it wasn't fashion from the houses of couture, but the look of young and pretty people on the streets. They copied the look of the women that soldiers posted to Europe would have tried to date.

The baby boom, of course brought us the youth culture and instead of following the upper class and wealthy, got firmly focused on the young and on media celebrities. Old money began to adopt "timeless classics" and left the more peculiar designs from the couture houses to those courting celebrity. You got the Jacklyn Bouvier look for women, and the ubiquitous suit for men, where a trained eye in period could tell the difference in price and status, but from our vantage window cleaners in black and white photos may now appear to be dressed formally.

I won't go into the trends of the eighties, other than to say that their extremes were something of a last gasp of prosperity. The big hair adopted by middle class women that could afford it reminds me of the pompadour. It got as high and big as it could, as a statement about how much money and time the wearer could dedicate to fashion, in an era rapidly turning feverish, because more work was needed every year to keep from slipping down the social scale. It was accepted that the really successful people all snorted coke in order to work sixteen hour days. It became the norm for a family to require two breadwinners just to pay the bills, but everyone still claimed to be getting richer and expected that the right university education would get you into the upper middle class.

So why have fashion trends stagnated in the world of ordinary people fashion since 2000? I think one reason is globalization. At any given high school where the kids are starting to make their own fashion choices you'll have kids who spend all their time gaming, and thus ignore fashion, you'll have kids who are trying to be good evangelicals and dressing to look modest and well behaved, gay and trans kids, the musical theater kids, the kids on the spectrum, the fashion watchers who follow the styles in young American celebrities, the fashion watchers who are immersed in some Asian country's styles, a few neo-nazis, a bunch who are following ghetto, a couple of vampire obsessed kids... They don't have to shp within a ten mile radius of where they live, nor to go to a big city to buy clothes and observe what other kids they should emulate. They are not watching the same news clips and going to the same movies as each other.

The common things these kids have is not very much money. They don't have to shop local, but they also probably don't have a part time job because all the part time jobs have been taken by terrified people in their thirties and forties who are working three jobs, or by terrified people in their sixties who are still working period. A hell of a lot of the kids are wearing what their parents can afford to buy them, and that means whatever the local mall or reliable on line retailer sells that a budget conscious parent thinks is good value, always remembering that your grades will be affected by your fashion choices, and the more money we can scrape together now for you higher education, the less you'll need to pay off in student loans.

None of the cliques and special interest groups are big enough to be able to differentiate themselves very much. You need a few like minded people to create a trend. You could stand out if you wear hoop skirts, or if you wear orange pigtails stiffened to stick straight out from your head, but if you are the only one doing that you'll feel uncomfortable, and besides you will be called into the office and threatened with suspension - because the halls are so crowded their isn't room for the level of garish needed to stand out! Kids are forbidden to wear backpacks in some schools. Purple hair? That's not a problem. No one will notice. But if you display the wrong slogan on your clothes or wear a trench coat on a wet day, prepare for your parents to get contacted by the school.

Standing out is much more scary now than it used to be. The girls are very much aware that that being noticed by the guys could lead to problems down the road, like stalkers, or incels marking you out as a Stacy in need of putting in her place. Dressing as a classical schoolgirl is going to signal that you are into schoolgirl fetish to the wrong people and that you are a mean girl to a few others. Maybe you better not wear a plaid skirt. And everyone is watching everyone else to see if they are the next school shooter - the last thing you want to do is look like you are alienated and struggling with your mental health. You won't be dealing with the Harper Valley PTA if you do, you'll be dealing with Blue Lives Matter. You keep your head down in schools nowadays. Boring is safe.

So the future trend setters are not setting anything. Austerity and insecurity means they are not making themselves visible. They even have public shaming via social media as a big influence. A bad sartorial choice or a wardrobe malfunction and they could easily see themselves on site dedicated to ridiculing people who dress differently. People of Walmart is one of the things having an effect on their fashion choices. Who wants to become a meme?
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:18 AM on November 25, 2023 [11 favorites]

During the summer, I wear T-shirts with cultural references obscure to anyone who isn't Gen X (stills from The Prisoner, art derived from John Carpenter movies, James Baldwin and Angela Davis, the like) that I have literally seen nobody else in the entirety of New York City wear. (Emphasis in original)

I'm several thousand miles away from Brooklyn, but last night the young waitress at the restaurant we were at was wearing exactly that type of shirt. So while the shirts themselves might be unique, it's not a unique look.

Some young people in Berlin are making an effort to bring back those ugly, early 90s “Cosby” sweaters.

I was on a video call just last week with someone (not in Berlin) wearing that kind of sweater.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:29 AM on November 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

Some young people in Berlin are making an effort to bring back those ugly, early 90s “Cosby” sweaters.

Could this have anything to do with the energy crisis that Germany just went through where they were terrified about not have the fuel to heat their homes during the winter?
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:36 AM on November 25, 2023

I was on a video call just last week with someone (not in Berlin) wearing that kind of sweater.

You weren't on a video call with me, were you? I mean, probably not unless you are a non-profit accountant, but I have a couple of late eighties/early nineties colorful abstract sweaters. Some sweaters like this are god awful, of course, but we're so used to seeing anything colorful and abstract in men's clothes as ugly and weird that it can be difficult to recognize that some are rather nice. My only problem is that wool itches me abominably and many of the nicest ones are wool rather than cotton.

It is true that the fit can be a challenge - I think set-in sleeves are almost universally more flattering than dropped and the eighties big poofy sleeves knit slightly long so they pool for more volume are definitely a look.

The prices are going up up up on eBay, too - Coogis, of course, are collectors' items, but secondary brands like Tundra that used to be cheap are getting almost as expensive now.
posted by Frowner at 6:45 AM on November 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

You weren't on a video call with me, were you? I mean, probably not unless you are a non-profit accountant, but I have a couple of late eighties/early nineties colorful abstract sweaters. Some sweaters like this are god awful, of course, but we're so used to seeing anything colorful and abstract in men's clothes as ugly and weird that it can be difficult to recognize that some are rather nice.

The call was definitely not with you, so I'm going to call this a full-blown international trend. It is actually something I've been seeing here and there where I live, though not in any great numbers; there are other components of 1980s fashion that I see a lot more of.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:54 AM on November 25, 2023

I firmly believe if you are old enough to look back on fashion trends then you probably can't even detect the actual trends the yoots are paying attention to now. Like you just can't even see or distinguish them. You're not trained in them. You've already had enough sex. You might even have the consequences (kids!) Your progressive lenses keep you from seeing them. Your psychological defence mechanisms protect you from knowing you are continuously horrendously violating them. You see the broad strokes of cyclical trends and maybe a few differences but fashion really lies in the subtleties that you are going to just miss because you have to make contributions to your retirement savings and watch the latest season of the crown. This is why you just can not and should not buy young people clothing unless you buy the exact specific thing they ask for.
posted by srboisvert at 7:33 AM on November 25, 2023 [19 favorites]

Your psychological defence mechanisms protect you from knowing you are continuously horrendously violating them.

This, but when I was young too.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:51 AM on November 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

Seeing through Clothes by Anne Hollander is well worth the read.
posted by y2karl at 8:04 AM on November 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Adult men didn't commonly wear shorts in everyday public settings until about the 70s, when they were made fashionable by some rock groups. In the decades since, the fashionable length of men's shorts has gone up and down and up again.
posted by binturong at 10:45 AM on November 25, 2023

In 1880 they went to London or Paris - the wealthy went there and brought back the designs, and the middle class looked at what the wealthy were wearing and adjusted as much as they could to follow it.

Related to that: fashion plates from the early to mid 1800s, which helped the aspiring middle class follow the trends of the aristocracy.
posted by gimonca at 12:35 PM on November 25, 2023

I’m in the Midwest and short hair seems to appear a lot on older women. I worked with a lady (before her recent retirement) that might have read as a lesbian if you had plopped her down on one of the coasts, but here she was just Older Midwest Practical Lady, and one of many.

I am approaching 50 and could keep my hair long but have discovered that going short brings out curls in fun ways. However, I was almost hesitant at first, not because of age, but because of some hang up about fat women and short hair that I don’t even know if I can properly articulate.
posted by PussKillian at 4:43 PM on November 25, 2023 [4 favorites]

When I was a tween in the Midwest, it was Known that married women cut their hair because long hair on a married woman is Trashy. (Which could mean poor or untidy, but in this context almost certainly meant sexual.)

For a while I took this at face value, later I thought how sad to enter a relationship and therefore tamp down sexuality, now I think that decades into a relationship it's probably not our hair that the other person responds to, so who knows?
posted by clew at 4:55 PM on November 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

That’s interesting, clew. My former coworker had very long hair as a teen and as a married woman (apparently she used to be able to sit on it) and she said it was her decision to cut it later in her marriage, much to the distress of her husband. This “men prefer longer hair” thing is definitely something I’ve noticed in other relationships as well. (My mom’s current husband keeps asking her to grow her hair out, which is funny because she literally never in her life wore her hair long.). Reading long hair as trashy because sexual is odd since the husbands seem to be hung up on it as alluring because sexual. So the politics of both are interesting.
posted by PussKillian at 7:39 PM on November 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

The changes are more subtle than changes seen in 60s/70s/80s/90s but they’re totally there. Ugg boots, there was that brief but terrible shoulder cut out trend ugh, we had hair beach waves for years and grey/light purple dyes, now into the wolf cut; we’re on to clear glasses changing to rose gold. I don’t know if it’s harder to see when you’re in it but ya things have changed. Just think what was Lindsay Lohan wearing ? Would you wear that now?

Here’s some commentary on Kate Middleton’s very dated eye makeup, but she finally updated her hairstyle (she lags fashion by years). We’re wearing lots of shine now.

The other common interpretation is that fast fashion has changed the release cycles so fewer obvious fad trends but more soft releases.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:52 PM on November 25, 2023

There's also this: Anti-bullying policies may have reduced bullying in schools, but it has only worsened kids' sense of fashion.
posted by ShooBoo at 10:08 PM on November 25, 2023

PussKillian, from gossip I overheard - or news from decades later - there was a four cornered norm war going on between husbands and wives who did or didn’t want sex, because no one was allowed to talk about what they personally wanted, only What Was Normal For Everybody, and they weren’t paired up to match.
posted by clew at 10:08 PM on November 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

Oh! Pulled up socks
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:27 PM on November 25, 2023

I've noticed this accelerated trend over the years too. Still, we never had Taliban beards when I was growing up.
posted by readyfreddy at 10:58 PM on November 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Jeans are enormous at the moment, my 12 year old needed new ones so off we bopped to the big Urban Outfitters in town. We went there because she wanted freaking Ed Hardy jeans. Ed Hardy! We are back in 2003. Luckily they only came in men's sizes so were too enormous even for her; I don't have to suffer the indignity of walking around with Ed Hardy emblazoned across her bum. Instead she got huge denim cargo octopus pants, I couldn't believe it. Last year she was wearing cargos with flannel shirts and band t-shirts, just like I did in 1998, but this year we have jumped forward to 2003 and it's octopus pants and freakin Ed freakin Hardy.
posted by goo at 5:11 AM on November 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

I mean, I'm still wearing some of the same clothes I had from 20 years ago, so

I'd still wear some of the same clothes I had from 20 years ago (mainly, yep, band T-shirts and jeans) if I could still comfortably fit into them. Alas....
posted by gtrwolf at 8:54 AM on November 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Speaking of cold shoulder tips, they’re still very present in fat lady fashion.

I’m making some baby steps towards A Personal Style, which I’ve never really had. Weirdly, it seems to be working on a sort of very light butch, which I don’t think I could have predicted. During a recent west coast visit I went to Wildfang and later speculated that they probably don’t see a lot of late-40s folks shopping there with their husband in tow.
posted by PussKillian at 9:57 AM on November 26, 2023

A bar I go followed their "1990s night" (think chokers, JNCO, flannel) with a "2000s night." I expressed a little bafflement about the idea, because I've seen so little change. A friend prompted me: surely I have some clothes from that era in my closet? "Oh, I have some shirts from that era," I said. "I wore one of them yesterday."

She extracted the design from me, and tried to tease me. "No one wears button-down plaid shirts any more."

"That guy is," I said, pointing.

There was definitely more distinctiveness in the women's clothes on "2000s night" than there was in the men's clothes. But even then, it was subtle. The DJ, a woman who usually wears a tee shirt, wore some sort of a tank top; I would have been unsurprised to see it elsewhere.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 10:26 AM on November 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

(mainly, yep, band T-shirts and jeans)

My They Might Be Giants "Severe Tire Damage" tour T-shirt is precisely as fashionable now as it was in 1997. Why would I ever stop wearing it?
posted by Daily Alice at 12:39 PM on November 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

Still, we never had Taliban beards when I was growing up.

Taliban? More like Full Werewolf Logger. Nobody in living memory had that growing up.
posted by y2karl at 1:29 PM on November 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

Taliban? Full Werewolf Logger? More like Clark from The Thing.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:04 PM on November 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

On the whole, people still look and dress exactly how they did 20 years ago.
I agree in general, but I think there's a lot less volatility in fashions than there used to be. This really stood out to me yesterday when stuck in traffic due to a big concert at the nearby stadium. We didn't know the concert was on and were trying to figure out what the event might be by looking at ages and fashions. I was struck by the huge variety of fashions and, while the crowds were mostly late teens to mid-20s, there was such a variety in what people were wearing that it could have been anything from a Wiggles concert to SexPo. Turned out to be Spilt Milk.

A man's suit from 1920 is the same as a man's suit in 2020, pretty much, not even in an ironic or retro way.
Absolutely not. Changes in the design and style of suits are relatively subtle because there's such limited scope, but a 1920 suit beside a 2020 suit would look vastly different. Any suit older than about five years is going to look at least dated because those subtle changes keep coming. There are obvious changes that really stand out (eg double vs single-breasted, size of lapels), but also smaller things in the cut of a jacket and/or pants and even stitching that can make a difference in appearance. Modern materials witch a much 'sleeker' appearance also date anything that looks rough by comparison.
posted by dg at 5:04 PM on November 26, 2023

> Some young people in Berlin are making an effort to bring back those ugly, early 90s “Cosby” sweaters

I know some stylish young people here in Seattle who wear those 1990s printed sweatshirts with the fancy collars, and somehow they look fabulous in them.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:29 AM on November 28, 2023