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Low-rise jeans. Butterfly clips. Crop tops.Denim jackets. Fitted blazers. Track-suits. Platform shoes. Strappy sandals. Mall brands like Gap, Hollister, and Abercrombie & Fitch. Over-the-shoulder bags and corded headphones. Even flip phones…that’s right, flip phones.
Millennials were the first ones to live online. Their neighborhoods are still there. And it’s like the Gen Z, Gen Alpha generations are able to go visit those neighborhoods directly versus just hearing it handed down from generational lore.
— Jenna Drenten, professor of marketing, Quinlan School of Business
If Quinlan School of Business marketing professor Jenna Drenten didn’t know better, she might think she had stepped back into the early 2000s, the start of her college years. In those days, shows like Gilmore Girls and Sex and the City ruled television, and the rise of a new millennium brought with it a mix of techno-optimism, playfulness, and existential dread. But the nostalgic fashion trends giving Drenten déjà vu are hardly an aberration; they’re increasingly popping up in TikTok feeds, thrift stores, and resale shops like Depop.
“Millennials were the first ones to live online,” Drenten said. “Their neighborhoods are still there. And it’s like the Gen Z, Gen Alpha generations are able to go visit those neighborhoods directly versus just hearing it handed down from generational lore.”
The reasons for the so-called millennial core fashion trend defy a singular explanation. One theory centers on what Drenten calls vicarious nostalgia, a term she has coined to describe a romanticized yearning for an earlier world without online histories, algorithmically generated product recommendations, and social media feeds. Much like the comeback of crafting groups, CDs, print bookstores, and in-person social clubs, the trend, Drenten explains, could be an early signal of a rising cultural backlash against an increasingly tech-mediated world.
“All of the products of the millennial era and its aesthetic are representative of this sort of imagery that Gen Z has around what it would’ve been like to not be tethered to Instagram or TikTok…to not necessarily know what your friends are doing; to have to go into a mall and shop,” Drenten said.
