Unserious By Design
Low-Rise, High-Key: Notes on Y2K Nostalgia
It wasn’t ironic. It just didn’t care. Fashion in the late ’90s and early 2000s wasn’t trying to be timeless or self-aware. It was a little chaotic. Kind of tacky. And fully committed to the bit.
We didn’t think that one day people would treat a Delia’s catalog like a primary source. We just wore metallic pants because they looked good under strobe lights. And now? Half the internet is trying to recreate that exact vibe from Tumblr archives and old Teen People scans.
There’s been a full-on revival of the Y2K era. Platform boots, capri pants, sparkle eyeshadow. But what’s missed is the energy. The unseriousness. The aggressively fun, borderline unhinged approach to getting dressed. No quiet luxury. No capsule wardrobes.
Maybe it’s not just about the clothes. The resurgence of Y2K style might have less to do with fashion and more to do with what it represented: unseriousness. After a long stretch of collective heaviness, there’s comfort in revisiting an era that didn’t take itself so seriously. It wasn’t about optimization or aesthetic restraint. It was about mood rings, impractical furniture, low-rise jeans, and doing too much on purpose. And maybe that’s exactly what people are craving again.
˖ ࣪⊹@ mall, txt me.⊹ ࣪ ˖
❤︎ C
