Dressing Pretty is Over: Fashion’s Ugly Decade
A New Era of Fashion: Embracing the Ugly
Fashion trends today have evolved into a blend of better and worse, with sauce stains, bleached eyebrows, combat shorts, and stomper boots defining the current style. Isaiah Lat, a 20-year-old student, DJ, and stylist from Chicago, embodies this trend, admitting he doesn’t mind a bit of oil or spaghetti on his shorts. “I used to wipe away stains, but now I think it’s chic,” he says, describing his style as a mix of dystopian, Mad Max, pirate, Steam Punk, and mythological vibes. He prefers thrift and DIY fashion, sporting skinny jeans, Capri pants, and visor-like sunglasses, often with clothes that are “somewhat stained.”
The Diverse and Rebellious Fashion Mood
A new mood has emerged in fashion, marked by varied aesthetics but unified by common themes. Camouflage, combat shorts, grungey plaid, goth-inspired makeup, and stomper boots are in vogue. Silhouettes and garments inspired by 2010s indie sleaze, along with nihilistic internet humor slogans on T-shirts, are prevalent. Daniel Rodgers, a digital fashion writer at British Vogue, attributes this to the rebellious energy of kids born in 2000, reclaiming styles millennials dismissed as uncool. The resulting look is often grotty, greasy, crumpled, and raw.
