To receive the Vogue Business newsletter, sign up here.
2016 is back. At least, according to TikTok.
Kylie Jenner is back in her 2016 “King Kylie” era, after generating buzz in a return to pink-dyed (or pink-wigged) hair on Instagram, with the caption “hiiiii remember me”. Lana del Rey, the artist who ruled all of our Tumblr feeds in the mid-2010s, featured in Skims’s latest campaign that dropped last week. (She’s also headlining Coachaella in April.) And khaki bombers, lace-up tops and distressed — and skinnier — jeans are making their way back into peoples’ wardrobes.
Does this mark a turning point for Y2K’s cultural dominance, or is the current penchant for all things 2016 a fleeting fascination, much like 2022’s brief embrace of indie sleaze? Trend cycles move faster than ever, and aren’t monolithic — different corners of the internet are frequently fed completely different content, relating to entirely different trends. Y2K fashion managed to break through the noise, dominating runways for multiple seasons, and forming a base aesthetic upon which many brands are now built. Can 2016 follow the same trajectory? Industry insiders weigh in.
José Criales-Unzueta, writer, Vogue Runway
Y2K won’t die, in my opinion. It will eventually hop off the trend cycle and likely jump back on at some point, and some people will continue to dress like so in the same way there’s folks who are obsessed with dressing like they’re in the ’70s or ’90s. It’s simply become another tool in the sartorial box.
There seems to be an online fascination with 2016 across the board and most platforms, so I’m not particularly surprised that we are seeing TikTok laser-focus on it as a trend right now. The way you see it being discussed on X, for instance, is that it was the last “great year”. In a sense, 2016 represents a shift in contemporary culture: Donald Trump was elected president in the US, and, in pop culture, Beyoncé released Lemonade, Tumblr began its final decline, and we lost pop icons like David Bowie and Prince. I say all of this because I don’t think that it’s exactly the year 2016 we are revisiting, but that we are collectively utilising 2016 as a surrogate label for the mid-2010s.
It’s certainly too early for 2016 to be the new Y2K. It will have a similar effect eventually, but we simply don’t have enough hindsight for it. What I think we are seeing is a millennial-induced nostalgia for an era, in which people our age were the same age Gen Z is now. What did our internet look like? What did we do on social media? What did we obsess over? This carries over onto TikTok, and as a Gen Z fascination for a time they remember seeing, but were too young to live through. I don’t remember the fashion of 2016 particularly fondly, but I do think the skinny jean-Chelsea boot of it all will make a quick comeback. As for the beauty, I think we’re nearing the revival of the whole “three” contour moment, though I think this should stay there.
I think what we’re going to see next is the revival of “boho chic”. Enter the Olsens in the late 2000s (2007 comes to mind) running around NYC, enter Serena van der Woodsen in Gossip Girl, etc.
Agustina Panzoni, trend forecaster
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the supposed 2016 revival and just how we talk about trending styles coming to the forefront and revivalist culture. Honestly, I can’t help but question if talking about revivals is relevant anymore. The market is so fragmented, so there is not really one revival asking of all the other revivals. There’s a revival of nineties makeup right now, eighties hair, Y2K fashion. But what I think is really interesting is how we’ve moved from reviving specific decades to specific years. Before the 2016 revival, there was a 2014 Tumblr revival. And that I think is very, very interesting.
This whole thing talks more about the collapse of revival culture as a whole. Reviving eras have fully collapsed. There’s been a lot of discourse about how aesthetics and styles have not really evolved during the past 20 years, in the 21st century, in the same way that it did in the 20th century where each decade meant such a significant change style wise. One of the reasons that people talk about this is because the material conditions of people haven’t really changed in the past 20 years. Another reason for this could be the fragmentation of the market: it’s hard to pinpoint one specific aesthetic as the overarching aesthetic. There are multiple happening at the same time; multiple revivals with their own trend curves existing all at once.
Mira Al-Momani, fashion creator
I think we’re certainly seeing a shift towards 2016 aesthetics. Whether or not they’ll rewrite the Y2K trend that’s been plastered across Pinterest and our TikTok For You page for the past while, I’m not so sure. The 2010s were quite different in silhouette to the Paris Hilton-esque trend we know and love. Y2K is Juicy Couture, baggy denim and mini, mini skirts. I find it hard to imagine the term being coined for bomber jackets, loafers and the impending resurgence of the skinny jean. But maybe I’m wrong or maybe I’m just hoping I won’t be wearing a tattoo choker again, at least anytime soon?
Alex Kessler, junior fashion editor, British Vogue
The Y2K aesthetic is irreplaceable, yet parallels exist between Y2K and 2016, particularly concerning the notion of embracing “good bad taste”. With the dominance of clean-cut, “quiet luxury” fashion, perhaps a reflection of our economic state, the desire to go against the grain is an innate human instinct. And 2016 has all the style tropes that negate what the wider public are buying into right now, which makes it appear cool again. To be frank, I kind of hate all of it — particularly the frayed denim cut-offs, sheer-panelled leggings and off-the-shoulder crop tops. Feels way too soon. Y2K will never die in my opinion. It will always have a place in the hearts and wardrobes of hotties.
Grant Goulden, co-founder of Jaded London
I think we’ve seen Y2K explode in recent years to the point of it becoming the new “commercial” again, with high street giants reclaiming and pushing it to the masses. It’s a natural reaction for people to stray away from it at that point and seek out a new way to explore a unique level of irony within style and fashion. There’s a large common agreement on social media (particularly among millennial and Gen Z generations) of 2016 being the “best year yet”, so I think that has a large part to play. From a menswear perspective, it’s when we really began to see streetwear boom such as Off-White etc. It felt like a real sub-culture to an extent, which is hard to pinpoint in more recent years. It’s very nostalgic.
2016 was a great year for brands like Saint Laurent, they were still relying heavily on their 2000s Indie Sleaze that remains the most relevant trend right now in 2024. I think we’ll see a lot of people referring back to those collections. I think longline T-shirts should absolutely stay in 2016, however. I don’t think the Y2K trend will ever die, fashion is a cycle, and it will always come back eventually. But I think the 2010s has a lot to explore, and there’s a lot more room for creativity and irony, which is only growing in popularity.
Mandy Lee, fashion writer and content creator
Overall, I feel like [the 2016 trend] is a total reach. Kylie wearing a pink wig once doesn’t mean anything, and that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? In the trend cycle of the 2020s, all it takes is one indication or example of a trend from the past before the articles start churning out “x trend is back!” It holds no weight or meaning. We need to let trends have a chance to properly breathe and flesh out before declaring something is back. I have seen little-to-no evidence that this is that’s happening and think we are still a handful of years away from any of these trends becoming popular again.
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
The Vogue Business TikTok Trend Tracker
