90's Fashion Makes a Comeback

Imagine you are walking through the halls of Exeter High School in the 90s: platform sneakers, flared pants, low rise jeans, and flannel plaid tops all sported by students walking from class to class. Now, imagine you are walking through the halls in 2022. Unsurprisingly, all of these trends have recycled and are once again, well, trends!

Fashion works in cycles that come and go. The skinny jeans so many rejected last year are most likely not banished forever, they will probably pop up again in another few years. Each fashion trend has five phases: introduction, rise in popularity, peak of popularity, decline in popularity, and rejection. This implies that the flare jeans put to rest in the early 2000s were not lost forever; they simply left the spotlight, only to be rediscovered by a new generation 20 years later. 

So, what other trends have cycled through society in the past? Chunky platform shoes, such as Filas, were very popular in the 90s. According to Joseph Mavericks from Better Marketing, Filas began to gain interest in 1988, became a hit in 1993, and peaked right around 1996. Seemingly out of nowhere, the shoe lost all of its demand and just about disappeared for the first eighteen years of the twenty first century. Not all was lost, though, as the platform style resumed in 2019. 

There’s another fashion trend making a major comeback: flared pants. Whether it’s on leggings or jeans, this is the current most sought after trend coming back from the 90s. While most people would have looked down upon this particular fashion choice in 2017, they have cycled back into our time; and now, teens and adults alike are looking to try out this trend. 

From head to toe, fashion is ever-changing. What was trendy a month ago may just disappear for several years before claiming the spotlight once again. To add on, many of the vanquished styles from the 90s have snuck back into the closets of teens 30 years later. Whether it’s sandals, shirts, or sweaters, fashion trends follow a never ending cycle that can define a generation.