A decade in the 21st century can feel like an eternity. In 2007, when Jezebel came into the world, George W. Bush was president, the iPhone was barely born, and Fergie had three entire songs in the Billboard top 20. Ten years later, Bush has retired to a quiet life as a painter, smartphones are nigh-sentient, Taylor Swift is making pop-rap joints that make Fergie sound like Nas, and President Donald Trump is trying to kill us all. Everything is pretty bad, and I have some more news for you: 2007 fashion is coming back.
The pop culture cycle is shorter than ever, which corresponds nicely with our attention spans; many of the trends we embraced as acceptable and wisely dumped by 2009 are returning to haunt us in 2017 and beyond. This means that ill-advised looks like low-rise pants and exposed thongs are contemptible in theory but simultaneously look like the hottest shit on the runway for Spring next year. You might not revisit these trends personally, but for better or for worse, they’re coming back into your zone. Here are a few highlights from this disturbing turn of events.
Lip Gloss
After what has felt like a lifetime of matte and semi-matte lipsticks, balms, stains, etc., freakin’ lip gloss is BACK. Glossier launched their own totally clear gloss this year and Fenty Beauty has the “Lip Luminizer” (you can’t fool me Rihanna, it’s gloss). Just beware of high winds. —Hazel Cills
Frayed Denim Miniskirts
I keep seeing different version of the frayed, light denim mini-skirt that I definitely wore with leggings and Converse back in 2007. It’s at Urban Outfitters, it’s at Charlotte Russe, it’s in Bella Hadid’s closet. And while it should definitely be stuck in the mid-00s with Paris Hilton and Mischa Barton where it belongs, somehow I want one in 2017. Please talk me out of it, thanks. —HC
Low-Rise Pants, Naked Hips
The resurgence of this look is just rude, some sort of elitist conspiracy privileging people with perfect bods and doing a damn disservice to the rest of us. The low-rise pant/leotard look was all over the runways for Spring 2018, and Vogue even deigned to give some advice as to how to pull it off—“minimal and clean,” presumably as opposed to “a smoking hot reminder that these pants and thong are giving me terrible swamp-ass.” We don’t need this, and yet I kind of like it, because the chemicals in plastic have warped my brain. —Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
Tent Dresses
One thing this era had going for it was to celebrate the least flattering styles imaginable; even Angelina Jolie looks sort of lost at sea in this tent dress, which she wore to the SAG Awards in early 2008. (As it turns out, this was on purpose; she was pregs.) Fortunately, it’s always here for us when we need to hide our burrito babies, and don’t forget its homelier cousin, the tunic dress, a style which comprised nearly my entire wardrobe in 2007, a dark year for me. —JES
Snockers
In 2017, the hottest hypebeast shoe is the snocker, which is a sneaker that is a sock (not to be confused with the boot that is a sock, which I guess could be called a sckoot). But we have seen this exact trend surface its (very) ugly head before, ten years ago, in the form of the Nike Air Kukini, a shoe that slipped straight on your foot, no laces, and was held there by a criss-cross of webbing that looked like snot off the faces of the aliens in Alien. I owned a pair in 2007; in fact, I owned the exact pair you see above, in the exact dot-matrix colorway; I believed I was incredibly cool at the gym in these, though if I still had them today I would never wear them to the gym. Back then, my sneaker-freaker kicks were Dunks and Blazers and AF1s, and the more flexible footwear was purely for the treadmill. In 2017, Performance Gear is high fashion because we are still in the dreaded era of athleisure, when up is down and your sock is your shoe and your bae is anyone who can get you early on the queue for special sneaker drops. But you can trace a direct through line from these Kukinis I got in a Michael K in 2006 to Balenciaga wrapping your precious gam in premium polyamide/elastane, word to the crep king. —JES
DISCUSSION
no...no...dear jesus god no...I was 22 and tan and had virtually no eyebrows in 2007 and I don’t wanna go back. I can’t go back.