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It’s no surprise to anyone these days that trends come and go in style like this. It’s practically a right of way. Trends turn into fads as quickly as trends are recycled. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of 80s fashion, then 90s fashion, and more recently 2000s fashion. However, as soon as the Y2K fashion trend appeared – awash in halter tops, baby tees and glittery lip gloss, bound together by quirky pastels – a new trend has arrived.
There is no specific name for the trend, although many people online refer to it as a byproduct of the “Twilight Renaissancephenomenon. It can be defined as clothing from the late 2000s to early 2010s. An influx of henley shirts, bootcut jeans and converse – all a phenomenon dedicated to popular figures of the era such as the Dusk Bella Swan of the franchise and The vampire dairies series’ Elena Gilbert.
@sk1nnyho3 edward cullen is literally the man of my dreams #twilight #bellaswan ♬ ac loverrmore – a
The style as a whole is made up of many different pieces of clothing, including low-rise bootcut jeans, henley shirts, camisoles, peasant blouses, converses, v-necks, boots, and long layered necklaces. Juxtaposed with current major fashion trends in 2021, this new microtrend rejects the quirky pastels and bright colors of the Y2K fashion craze and instead embraces more muted, earthy tones to match the fall season just when it’s time. where the trend started to make a comeback.
@emmabchu Twilight Bella Swan outfits pt. 2🖤 #twilight #bellaswan #outfitideas #DontQuitYourDaydream #outfits
♬ ac loverrmore – a
So, let’s break down this trend – how it started, when it started, and what it means for the future of microtrends. Your typical cultural analysis.
When did this trend start?
This trend started gaining momentum around August 2021, before fall and the start of the school year. Unsurprisingly, the trend was born from the TikTok app with its huge influence on the fashion industry these days. As mentioned earlier, the revival of this style is heavily based on the resurgence of popular media and pop culture influences from the 2000s – two of the most popular again being the Dusk deductible and The Vampire Diaries series.
Coincidentally, the rise of “Bella Swan outfits” and “Elena Gilbert outfits” began to rise in Google searches and popularity around the time when all Dusk movies and The vampire diary the series are released on Netflix. This, alongside the recent popularity of Dusk The franchise as a whole has accumulated these few years despite being over ten years old, all pose viable reasons as to why the style is back in fashion again.
The dangers of microtrends
Despite its popularity, the microtrend status of this style cannot be ignored. TikTok is infamous for creating microtrends so short they usually only last a few months. Before the huge impact of social media on fashion, trends lasted for many years before going out of style. These microtrends are therefore extremely harmful in the fashion and retail industry for their promotion of overconsumption, wasteful practices and unsustainable nature. These types of clothing are also often made by fast fashion companies, which often produce their products unethically.
However, clothing of this style is not necessarily this dated – staple pieces were worn through the early 2010s – it’s safe to say that the revival of this fashion avoids some of the consequences that microtrends usually have. Teenagers may be able to find some of these pieces in their own closets or use used clothes from older siblings’ or parents’ closets. Savings is also a viable option!
The influence of social media on the fashion industry
As mentioned earlier, it’s no surprise that this trend has been curated through social media and the internet, and certainly not through the traditional, conventional means of supermodels or fashion magazines. Today’s teenage population has the entire internet at their disposal to share their fashion tastes and influence future trends. In a wrapcompliance.org article, author Mariel Nelson writes the following:
“Before the rise of TikTok and Instagram influencer culture, we looked to models, movies, celebrities, and fashion magazines to set trends that many people followed carefully and diligently. This group of people was small and our access to them was carefully curated, which ultimately limited public exposure to potential new trends and slowed fashion cycles.Over the past 15 years, however, the rise of YouTube bloggers, and more recently, Instagram and TikTok creators, has given almost anyone the opportunity to influence the masses.Now there are hundreds of thousands of potential trend setters who can quickly and easily reach millions of people.
This leads directly to the roles teenage demographics play in reviving this trend. Today, this type of clothing has rapidly grown out of the small corner of the internet it once occupied. Major fashion retailers and sellers have now jumped on the bandwagon. Take for example this viral top from the luxury designer brand Dolce and Gabbana:
this dolce & gabbana top is a NEED pic.twitter.com/e2zzkI4H3q
— maria (@di0rkitten) October 22, 2021
This top has sparked a whole debate online, with people praising it, calling it bland and outdated, or comparing it to Lizzie McGuire (whether that’s a good or bad thing is just up to you). Not only major fashion brands such as Dolce and Gabbana profited from this TikTok trend, however. The social media app has also begun to create space for outdated brands to reinvent their images and rekindle broken relationships between the company and consumers, especially among Gen Z.
Take Abercrombie and Fitch for example, the long-forgotten American clothing brand that peaked in the 90s and 2000s, but has been dormant ever since.
In an interview with Teen Vogue, Cary Collins, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of Abercrombie Brands, tells the magazine how TikTok has helped the brand. “Over the past few years, we’ve focused on listening to our customers, and TikTok has been the perfect platform to foster that communication,” she says. She later adds that “the innate authenticity of TikTok and its entire community [has] allowed us to humanize Abercrombie.”
Not only does TikTok allow apparel brands and retailers to take advantage of the sub-communities it fosters, but it also appears to provide a new space for those brands to simply become “in” again. The influence of social media on the fashion industry is enormous.
What does this mean for the future of fashion?
Clearly, microtrends and social media will continue to dominate their role within the fashion industry. There’s no shame in wanting to participate in trends if they like them, as long as they do their best to participate in them in a sustainable and ethical way. Finding alternatives to fast fashion, such as wearing second-hand clothes, saving money or investing in fair trade clothing if you can afford it, are all feasible ways to do this.
What it means to dress in this style today
Although this style is only about 10 years old, it still has a semblance of nostalgia attached to it. With teenagers being the main demographic for this trend, that’s obvious. With the struggles of the pandemic and the current state of the world, many people have turned to the media they once enjoyed – things that bring them comfort, reminiscing about simpler times. Watching the media they enjoyed as children brings comfort back, and there’s no shame in wanting to recreate those moments, even through everyday outfits.