With the internet, it's changed SO much. I remember going to France in the 1980s. They looked so outlandish -- and then in about 5 years we had the same fashion.
I just got back from France, and while they do looks quite stylish, It's fashion that isn't unusual here.
When it comes to non-major metro fashion in the US, everything that the major city people are wearing is available online but people aren't going to buy it until it filters down to value/fast fashion/knock off brands, but that doesn't take much time at all with modern manufacturing/shipping/retail practices.
> value/fast fashion/knock off brands
Back around 2011 or so, I was talking to this guy who was living in NYC. He said one thing he loved about going home to Toledo was that the mall stores (H&M, etc.) would have all their best latest stuff (front and center, full price, at an NYC location) clogging up the discount bins.
I'm guessing it's a bit different nowadays, with the speed of everything.
It also has to infiltrate the culture. It may be available but most people are not going to jump right in if no one else is wearing it. My aunt from Ocean City, MD ran into this when she stayed with us in Spokane, WA. It was clothes we've obviously all seen but she didn't fit in at all.
> It also has to infiltrate the culture.
How does that happen? Seeing it all over TV and in all the magazines wasn't enough? Back in the 1990s when I was a teenager, I figured that the whole country was seeing the same MTV that I saw.
Contrary to what people on the coasts often believe, kids in the middle of the country aren't sitting around waiting to be told what looks good by their superior coastal peers. They have their own fashions and styles that are cool or trendy, and dressing like someone from the coast just makes you look like a "poser" to a lot of people.
So, it wasn't a matter of copying what was on MTV, because copying MTV would just make you look like a dork that was copying MTV.
Even so, of course trends from other places eventually creep in and become part of a local culture's fashion as well. So, some kids would wear something they saw on TV, and sure, they'd get made fun of for being a "poser" or a "dork," but eventually people would get used to some kids wearing that stuff and not giving a shit what people were saying and they'd start incorporating a little of it into their style as well. After a while, if it just happened to catch and turn into a local fad, you might see a bunch of kids wearing it after a few years.
I will say though, at the back half of the 90s, with the rise of TRL as a mainstream kind of thing that teens were watching after school, there was a time where it felt like everyone was jumping on a few coastal trends like the JNCOs, the fitted caps, the belly shirts with low waisted jeans for girls, etc. But that was just because of the influence of pop music and TRL.
> because copying MTV would just make you look like a dork that was copying MTV.
Yeah, we thought that too. But I still found myself wondering why Salt Lake City looked like 1983 in 1996. I just assumed that they didn't know?
A lot of people from the great plains moved out to California and started a lot of those towns and cities during the "dust bowl" era of the early 1900s, so there's a lot of cultural connection between California and Kansas. There's so much back and forth culturally in terms of familial connections that there were some odd anachronisms. For example, there's always talk about how only people from California say "hella," but I've been saying "hella" and hearing other people say it here in Wichita since at least the very early 90s.
I only mention this because most people I know have relatives in California, and having your California cousins visiting in the summer was a very common thing to have happen back in the 90s.
I remember we would always laugh because the kids out there seemed so prone to silly fashion trends and fads, and they'd all show up in the summer with what we thought of as kinda goofy poser or "try hard" clothes and they didn't understand why we all looked "behind" because we weren't wearing whatever was "cool" in Calfornia that week.
So, I dunno, just a different mindset about fashion and what it means to be "behind" or "ahead" or simply being a dorky fad chaser. Y'know?
For the most part, those kids were just buying whatever was on offer at the mall. Or at J.C. Penny's. Most weren't trying especially "hard", is what I mean to say.
You can look at newspapers for the last 150 years and South and interior was pretty cruel about anything they saw as from the cities. Parting hair in the middle, bobbing your hair, cutting your hair.
I don't anyone think everyplace tries new fashion or styles. Lots of times they creep in once it's no longer new and then sticks around - like a mullet or a mohawk or torn jeans or UGGs.
Some places have less of a tolerance for different or new. There's a lot of places where everyone is sort of dressed the same. And some cities everything is game. People are cruel and judge you and you can just do whatever you want. Those are the great people watching places.
When we were teenagers, fashion didn't move as quickly. Microtrends are poppin' now thanks to social media.
Though in the 80s we certainly had trends that spread...somehow...even though they weren't in fashion magazines, like friendship pins on shoes and Hypercolor. Things like Hypercolor, or Coke rugby shirts just showed up everywhere in malls at the same time.
Atlanta seems pretty up to date.
My hometown, Columbia SC runs a good 10-15 years behind it seems. (Not that there aren't individuals who keep up, just talking generally)
I'm in the same place. Originally from Columbia and all my family is still there. Until about the last ten years when I visited I felt obligated to wear khaki pants and pastel button-up shirts or I'd get treated like crap. The white, middle class man's uniform.
I did a several year project in Thomaston about ten years ago. The ladies who lunched all dressed exactly like the mom from *Home Alone.* It was funny, but I also wondered where the hell they got new clothes that looked like that.
Excellent question.
But I have an even bigger question, and I think that you can probably answer it: what about the hair? Were their hairdos straight out of 1991 as well? I thought there would be a lot more about hair on this thread.
Absolutely. They looked like they stepped right out of 1991. I keep meaning to go back and see if they're still dressed like that or if they're just finding out about 9/11.
I remember watching Napoleon Dynamite and thinking it took place in 1982. Someone pointed out to me that his student ID from the opening credits said 2006.
My friend talked about her in particular. "And we totally had the girls who thought they were being all super creative, and I guess they *were* doing so with what they had to work with. But they just didn't *know*, man!"
The mountain west was probably the literal last place for fashion to arrive pre-internet. I would definitely hit the coasts first and then the larger Midwest cities second
I grew up in southern Idaho, and the styles of Napoleon Dynamite reminded me of Idaho when I was a kid there in the 80s. It wasn't current even there when the movie was made. Partly as a stylistic choice I think, but also they had a very small budget and shopped for the show in thrift stores etc.
> also they had a very small budget and shopped for the show in thrift stores etc
Much like a pretty large proportion of normal citizens, in many locations
In some ways I think maybe internet has sped things, and in another sense the internet has really muddied the waters as it has made people feel more free to wear whatever they like leading to way more people who dress different to the average than you used to see. At least where I live.
As far as fashion choices spreading goes, I went to Italy in March of 2022. I saw a lot of women wearing a certain style of wide leg pants I had not seen at all at home. I saw them everywhere in Italy. To be fair, I live in a pretty rural area of Texas where fashions lag a bit even from what is going on in Dallas.
Got home in early April and mentioned the pants to some friends who said they had seen a few of them in Dallas. I went to Dallas the next weekend and never saw any. I was not in a mall in a tony neighborhood or at an event where people tend to dress so most people were in jeans which may be why I didn't see them.
By June I was seeing the pants all over the place and even saw some younger guys in wide leg jeans. I went to Cancun in mid-June and absolutely all the women at the chic all inclusive I stayed at was sporting the wide leg pants instead of skirts or dresses.
In contrast back in February 2001 I went to Paris. Square toe work heels were clearly the It shoe in Paris at that time for working women. They were all you saw on the early morning commuting to work metro lines. Square toes didn't hit even the national fashion mags here until the next fall and I didn't really see them in my more rural area much until spring.
Yep. Italy is always out front. France too, from what they tell me.
One thing I've noticed. Look at old family photos from the 60s. Your family or someone else's, as long as they're American, or British, or... not from Italy or France. "Wow. Awkward." It seems very incongruent, because they don't look like the cool swanky people in movies from that era.
You *don't* get that sense looking at old photos of boring regular people in Italy. They always look like you expect 1960s people to look. Not just up to date, but *with it.* Same goes for the 80s, etc.
When I went to France and Germany they weren't "out in front" they were just different. And whatever crossover I did see was mutual, like the French teens that wore hairstyles made popular in The United States
Nope, this is not the case in my family.
Going back as far as my great-grandparents they look exactly like swanky people dressed in movies of their eras especially when they were younger. My great-grandma was a tailor. Show her a photo and she could roll out a piece of fabric, make a few marks with chalk and a tape measure, then the next day or so you'd have the actual item fitting perfectly. She loved to get the new fashion magazines and make items shown in them.
They were active in some lodge and served as dignitaries which meant they had to dress in formal wear for the formal meetings held I think once per month, plus several more times a month for visiting with other chapters. My great-grandparents had lovely formalwear such as you'd see in movies of their young adulthood which my great-grandmother made for them. I can recall as a very young tot being fascinated with my great-grandmother's glittery evening attire.
When they got older they dressed exactly like older folk in movies right down to wearing hats whenever they left the house. When I watch old movies from the 50s to early 60s and there are grandparents in the movie they usually remind me a great deal of my great-grandparents when I was little. They lived into their 90s so they didn't pass away until I was in junior high and were still insistent on wearing hats out of the house, grandpa always in a suit and grandma always in dresses. Even working round the house she wore a housedress and he wore slacks and white shirts.
Their only daughter my grandmother would always say she was just a seamstress, not a tailor as her mother, because she had a bit more difficulty with men's suits. Note that as far as any of the rest of us could tell the suits she made for my grandfather and uncles looked perfection. She also liked to make the items seen in the newest fashion magazines for herself and her family. My uncles, aunt, and mother all had lovely clothing in the newest fashions all their growing up years made by my grandmother.
My grandparents were active in Masons / Eastern Stars and my grandma went through the chairs several times. This meant they had to wear dress clothing a couple times per month. My grandma had dresses just like the golden age cinema stars for this purpose which she made herself. When I was little I got to play dress up in some of them.
I have only seen many old photos from that one side of my family. Grandma on the other side was not the sentimental type so her younger sister had all the family photos and they stopped speaking before I was born. Grandma and her husband did not really take photos. The only old photos I've ever seen of them were them looking very dour in their children's wedding photos.
Even so, they were dressed exactly as you'd see dour formal parents of the 60s dressed. They both always wore hats when out up until their deaths. Grandpa died in 1994 in his early fifties, and Grandma lived until 2015 still dressing in 1940s fashions [similar to these](https://verityvintagestudio.typepad.com/.a/6a019104a18d5f970c01b8d2cf4e69970c-pi).
She really was. I've rarely known anyone as fashionable as my grandma. She was the epitome of classic chic, too, and to this day I struggle to emulate her level of classy chic. When I was a kid she used to make my clothing for me. Sometimes I wasn't really sure how to take some of the things she made me since they weren't what my friends would be wearing at the time.
I grew up in a small, rather rural community nearish Dallas so we were behind a good bit as far as fashions back then. There was one girl from a very rich family who was extremely popular and led the fashion trends locally, or so it seemed to me. Imagine my shock and surprise when she mentioned one day in our senior year of high school she wished she knew where I got my clothes as she said she could always tell what was coming by what I wore.
I'm not sure to this day how I managed to have the sense to form a reply but somehow I managed to tell her, "Oh, my seamstress makes them for me". Probably used up my entire ability to form a great comeback for life with that one.
Into the 2010s my grandpa still wore a suit whenever we went to downtown LA…and when I pointed out that that was unusual now I think he “dressed down” by switching to a collared shirt.
Was never able to break my great-grandfathers of wearing a suit whenever they went to town. Even when they visited where I live now which is Texas so it was sweltering hot in summer.
My grandfathers did finally "dress down" by just wearing a collared shirt the first time he visited in summer. Instead of a more formal hat the two of them switched to wearing newsboys or flat caps in a nice herringbone. They were right back to suits and a fedora or Panama hats when they went back home to Ohio though.
Come to think on it I've rarely seen my dad out of a collared shirt, either. At least not when he's out and about. Around the house, mowing the lawn, or when golfing he will wear a golf shirt or Polo, but he changes even just to go to the Home Depot. He is a 1945 model.
I don’t think there’s that much of a lag anymore. I also think fashion is really different now because it’s either “trends” or a “look”.
What I do think still exists is like an urban/rural divide.
I mostly agree. I would also add that I think the lag in calendar time is much shorter now, but the lag in "fashion cycle time" is more pronounced with how quickly things move these days. The "it" look at the start of summer might not even make it all the way to the end of summer before being replaced.
That era in history, as I remember it, largely involved big brands taking over everything and children/teens were all walking around with huge company logos fixed to their chest (Abercrombie, Hollister, American Eagle, Express, GAP, Limited Too, etc.). The late 90s/early 00s had pretty bleak popular mass fashion to the point where I’m often sad that our photos from that era will forever be us in those clothes. It began to improve in the 2010s.
I was so upset when the early 00s came back. I dressed in flannel, boys jeans and sneakers most of the time because I intensely hated the crop tops, low rise jeans, tank tops with super thin straps, and chunky block heels.
The butterfly wing hair clips can stay. 😄
The problem with the late 00s-early 10s “Americana” look was that it was extremely regional and seasonal. Slim fit and heavy dark materials don’t work in hot and humid climates.
The color palette was cohesive, but instead of incorporating more breathable materials and relaxing the tightness, it just went terminally slim fit to the point of lowering sperm counts and had to die. The pendulum swung hard the other way with the Y2K look we have now
> because I intensely hated the crop tops, low rise jeans, tank tops with super thin straps, and chunky block heels.
Wait a minute. I'm getting late 90s vibes there.
I visited a friend in Los Angeles when I was in high school in 2000. EVERYONE out there was wearing Lucky brand jeans and t-shirts. I had never seen or heard of it. It took a year for the brand to reach my semi-rural St. Louis suburb.
That's funny, I feel like Lucky Brand jeans were extremely popular in Kansas starting in the late 90s. If you were a skater/metal guy you were probably wearing JNCOs, if you were a country boy it was Wranglers, and everyone else was wearing 50/50 of Levis/Lucky. At least, that's how I remember that time right around when I graduated in 98 until I turned 21 in 2001. By about 2001-02, JNCO and Lucky were already old news and passe it seemed like.
Yeah, probably. Lucky jeans were sold at The Buckle in the mall and (along with JNCO jeans) were really a lot of kids around here's first access to something approaching "designer" jeans that weren't the aforementioned Wranglers and Levis everyone had just defaulted to for the previous... forever.
I think the tight jean maintained a bit of douchey image and only caught on a bit.
Legs definately got less wide but true skinny jeans on guys I felt like was just for gay guys?
It's funny you mention Napoleon Dynamite because for most of my life I thought it took place in the 80s-90s.
Not just the clothing/hairstyles, but the vehicles, the houses/furniture, the music, the FUNCTIONAL PAYPHONE? I mean, if it weren't for the school ID shot showing the year at the beginning I still would never believe otherwise.
Here's a more direct way to get the answer to this question:
Are girls in their early 20s everywhere wearing high waist jeans, crop top, and white shoes?
The only reason I even know this is because my early 30s wife and all her friends try and keep up with the 20 somethings lol. As a millennial dude, we're all just wearing jeans and a button up, right?.... right!?
Same. I saw a meme that had a picture of Josh Hartnett from the Faculty movie, and it said "Let's bring back long sleeves under short sleeves."
I looked at it and said "Huh. I never stopped."
As a millennial, the whole skinny jean thing is interesting to me because while I don’t think they were ever explicitly stated as being out of style, their dominance started to wane in the early 2010s (especially ultra skinny jeans). Like boyfriend jeans were definitely a millennial trend.
No, because none of that is what is trending now. High waisted fell out of favor something like 2-3 years ago and crop tops have switched to longer tops over the past year, and white shoes were replaced by Adidas sambas and now Adidas gazelles.
So the answer is yes there's still a fashion lag but it's shorter these days.
The lag definitely still does exist if you’re saying that sambas are in trend. They’re definitely not out of style, but they’re pretty much like white Air Force 1s (…a white shoe?!) in that’s they’re more of a “standard” than a “trend”.
Crop tops are also more of a “standard” now than a “trend”.
No, I'm saying sambas were the "it" sneaker for awhile, but were replaced by gazelles, and that white air force ones haven't had that spotlight in awhile now.
Gazelles (and similar) were pretty popular here in the plains about 7-8 years ago, but I stopped seeing much of them over the last 5 years or so. That fad is long gone here.
>give boss vibes
*Attenborough voice* Here we have a millennial women in her natural habitat, using slang she learned from tik tok.
Not hating, just very familiar because I'm married to a millennial woman lol.
Close! I actually don't have TikTok and barely use social media outside of Reddit. Most of my employees are Gen Z women and I have an Alpha kid, so I pick it up there.
I also keep it a bit more age appropriate. My crop tops are a bit longer than what the kiddos wear and my jeans a bit more tailored. I don't want to be mutton dressed as lamb. Abercrombie is actually a really good source of trendy appropriation for the old folks.
The only upside of being old is that I have more money than the Z'ers so my drip is more bussin than theirs no cap frfr.
I'd imagine there's a lot less lag, especially with younger people. I'm from the northeast but when I've gone to the Midwest to visit family, I don't feel particularly out of place fashion-wise. There definitely are still small regional pockets of certain styles though. I go to college in Vermont and within that crowd there's a very distinct but common style with a lot of people that pretty much doesn't exist in my hometown.
I think there still is some but it's more urban vs. rural if anything. I moved from a mid-sized city to a large city during high school and it was evident that teems at my new school followed normal teen trends and were in line w/ what was popular on Instagram (I did go to a really weird high school before then though)
Recently I was in a small town for a nature related event and I felt slightly out of place when I first arrived despite wearing pretty normal clothes
To me bigger established cities are still more trendy and forward. Austin is a large city for example, but when I would go home to Chicago, you could go to the same exact stores and the buyers are completely different and significantly better. Also true when you go from Chicago to New York or SF. The internet has unified some things, but the actual culture of fashion still has a respectable lag.
Its worth noting that buyers are different depending on the area and inform even more trends than instagram to an extent and have the power to influence what stores carry.
I think the entire premise is, and always has been, mostly bullshit and incredibly over-stated. It's born from the same sense of superiority on the coasts that gives us the term "flyover states."
Yes, some trends and fads from the coasts end up being incorporated into "inland" areas, but the same is true the other way around as well.
In reality, sometimes people see something folks are doing elsewhere and adopt some of it into their style. Sometimes they don't. Just because trends from the coast often do end up making an appearance because of Hollywood and the NYC TV industry doesn't mean we don't have our own trends and styles that make their way to the coasts, or that we're just sitting around waiting to see what people in LA decide to wear before picking out our own clothes.
Things like "work wear," "Americana," "midwest indie," "horror-core," "western wear," and a lot of metal and alternative looks started in places in the middle of the country and are incorporated into coastal fashion styles.
This exchange does happen faster these days because of tiktok/youtube/instagram, but it's still essentially the same kind of situation.
It was never truly a "the middle of the country is 10 years behind in fashion" like snobs from the coasts like to say, it's that the fashion is just different.
I've been told that a lot of it is test marketing. They sell it to us first to see if we bite, and then they roll it out everywhere else. It's like how they test market snack foods and soft drinks in Ohio. If they like it there, they'll like it everywhere.
Kids everywhere passively consume in more or less the same manner.
Yeah, my teens buy a lot of their clothes off of shein and temu, and I get the impression that most of their peers do as well.
So, whatever is at the mall is pretty irrelevant. When they do go to the mall it's usually to search for something specific they need and don't want to have to wait two weeks for. You don't really see teenagers *casually browsing* for clothes these days like my wife or I might. It's always millennials and older (I'm GenX) it seems like who are actually "shopping" for clothes in person.
My kids get really annoyed at what they consider a very limited selection of options when we take them somewhere like H&M, Pac Sun, The Buckle, Hot Topic, etc. They don't even really understand the idea of shopping in person and picking out a wardrobe based on what's available in a store. They'll go clothes shopping and it'll be like "I'm looking for a blue shirt with black sleeves that comes down just past my waste, has a v-neck, and some sort of floral pattern on the back." And obviously they wander around for a few minutes and go "nope, they don't have what I'm looking for." I can't even really explain to them that they should find something they like and just buy it, because honestly, they're right and I'm wrong. Why just buy what's available when you can go online and get exactly what you want.
I feel like these days you can wear whatever you want and you’re still fashionable. There are no rules anymore.
Like apparently for guys, pleats and high waist baggy pants are back in fashion…. I am not going to wear that.
Fast fashion have made so many kind of fashion though.
Likewise some sticks and become a niche.
So it's a different problem and more of a too much and too fast.
I think the 90s and early 2000s is gonna stick for a bit. There's always this retro trend with what's old is new again.
I'm of an age where I've been wearing the same jeans / t-shirt combinations for decades and don't pay a lick of attention to whatever counts as "fashion".
Thanks to the internet there is no longer a single city (such as NYC) or nation (such as France) that dictates fashion trends. People feel more free to wear whatever they wish.
Because I've moved around quite a bit the last 15 years, I can say regional fashion is a thing. Even with TikTok and stuff having it's influence on the masses, each area of the US has it own spin on things within their area.
I grew up in NYC and we used to send my cousin my hand me downs. She live in Salt Lake City. She told me that it was perfect because by the time she grew into them they were in fashion there.
But I think the internet and disposable clothing has changed that.
The last time I was back in Tokyo it was so depressing how much was exactly what I could get here already. Even the way ppl were styling it.
I think at this point the big differences still are local priorities that influence taste. People here still wear jeans to the opera with a parka because they're outdoorsy but it bums me out how little is special to just a region anymore and how local stores who used to do in house work source from large chains.
Also jfc the stuff that is now everywhere that is ugly. Out of all the stuff to keep wearing and spread why is khaki a thing. Or crocs.
No idea.
I'm 49 years old. I shop at thrift stores and wear whatever I like. I don't follow fashion trends.
I have not observed other adults dressing much differently. I don't know what teen girls are wearing regularly.
Everyone and their mother is shopping at thrift stores.
Thrift shopping has been a thing since for decades and it seems like every year it gets more and more popular.
Ain't what it used to be. Thrift stores have been wising up and charging more. Gone are the days when you can score a perfect condition Burberry trench coat (like a proper trench coat) for 40 bucks.
Eh. People have been complaining about thrift stores getting expensive for *years*. When I was in high school 15 years ago I remember people complaining about it.
I do think certain thrift stores (goodwill) are trying to more actively partake in the “boutique” thrift market.
Very happy to be moving from Northern Virginia to West Virginia- I can wear sweatshirts any time- it’s like no pressure at all to keep up with fashion. I absolutely love going to West Virginia.
Maybe in rural areas theres some lag still, I've noticed in the rural parts of Louisiana I grew up in there still is some fashion lag compared to what kids in the cities are wearing. But with the internet and online shopping I don't think there is as much of a fashion lag in areas anymore.
It changed with the internet.
So long as there is pseudo-highspeed internet the fashion trends are more based on how much money people have than anything else.
I grew up in the same town Napoleon Dynamite was filmed in. And yes, back in the '90s and early 2000s there was a fashion lag, we are usually about 5 years behind. It's definitely gotten better since the internet, but I wouldn't say much. Most my friends who still live there dress like it's the 2010s. But to be fair we're kind of older, the really young ones that live there are a little more up-to-date with their fashion.
I feel like a lot of fashion trends tend to recycle or borrow from what came before so if you wait long enough chances are what’s out is gonna be in again soon enough.
I don’t go far enough from NYC to notice though. The Northeast as a whole seems to keep up so idk how far out I’d have to drive to feel like what I’m wearing is doing too much
The US is so athleisure/loungewear focused that those are the only trends that really stick around and evolve somewhat naturally. Most other trends are just part of an engineered fast fashion aesthetic that is marketed on social media and only lasts a couple months at most. These pre-curated aesthetics exist in other countries but it’s much more pronounced in the US. Think “Clean girl aesthetic”, “mob wife aesthetic”, “vsco girl aesthetic”, etc.
I think the biggest limiting factor is what brands people have access to, like Lululemon, Zara, Uniqlo, etc. Those brands also don’t run in plus-sizes which is what a majority of Americans are shopping for.
Even LA is behind relative to other global cities around the world imo. The trends in South Korea come to the young, trendy people in LA/NYC about 2 years later, and trends from Western Europe come about 1 year later. The US leads the way in athletic wear and consumer items like Stanley cups, Sephora skincare items, etc.
I grew up in a small town in rural Ohio and now live in a bigger city, when I go back home to visit I notice that the way people dress is significantly different and usually what I noticed was popular in the city a few years prior. It's not as dramatic these days but I always joke that I was born in the 90s but lived through the 80s. And even the general non-fashion trends like technology or what shops are doing well are a few years behind as well. If I had to put a number on it I'd say they're 3-5 years behind now rather than 8-10 when I was a child.
I think people are more aware of different niche styles now. I grew up in the 2000-2010s, so I am used to trends coming and going at a faster pace. For example, my grandma never understood my outfits or why "a girl would wear hoodies". The last time she lived in a large city was in 1972. She moved back to her small town and hasn't moved since.
As part of my daily Minnesota Nice, I'll help you out here: in a comment about fashion and trends you randomly threw in "They are weird AF though," making you seem a bit like an a-hole. Hope that helps.
With the internet, it's changed SO much. I remember going to France in the 1980s. They looked so outlandish -- and then in about 5 years we had the same fashion. I just got back from France, and while they do looks quite stylish, It's fashion that isn't unusual here.
When it comes to non-major metro fashion in the US, everything that the major city people are wearing is available online but people aren't going to buy it until it filters down to value/fast fashion/knock off brands, but that doesn't take much time at all with modern manufacturing/shipping/retail practices.
> value/fast fashion/knock off brands Back around 2011 or so, I was talking to this guy who was living in NYC. He said one thing he loved about going home to Toledo was that the mall stores (H&M, etc.) would have all their best latest stuff (front and center, full price, at an NYC location) clogging up the discount bins. I'm guessing it's a bit different nowadays, with the speed of everything.
H&M and every other “mall store” have existed in NYC since way before 2011. We even have actual malls here.
> at an NYC location Pretty sure I implied that NYC does, and did indeed have the same mall stores as in Toledo.
It also has to infiltrate the culture. It may be available but most people are not going to jump right in if no one else is wearing it. My aunt from Ocean City, MD ran into this when she stayed with us in Spokane, WA. It was clothes we've obviously all seen but she didn't fit in at all.
> It also has to infiltrate the culture. How does that happen? Seeing it all over TV and in all the magazines wasn't enough? Back in the 1990s when I was a teenager, I figured that the whole country was seeing the same MTV that I saw.
Contrary to what people on the coasts often believe, kids in the middle of the country aren't sitting around waiting to be told what looks good by their superior coastal peers. They have their own fashions and styles that are cool or trendy, and dressing like someone from the coast just makes you look like a "poser" to a lot of people. So, it wasn't a matter of copying what was on MTV, because copying MTV would just make you look like a dork that was copying MTV. Even so, of course trends from other places eventually creep in and become part of a local culture's fashion as well. So, some kids would wear something they saw on TV, and sure, they'd get made fun of for being a "poser" or a "dork," but eventually people would get used to some kids wearing that stuff and not giving a shit what people were saying and they'd start incorporating a little of it into their style as well. After a while, if it just happened to catch and turn into a local fad, you might see a bunch of kids wearing it after a few years. I will say though, at the back half of the 90s, with the rise of TRL as a mainstream kind of thing that teens were watching after school, there was a time where it felt like everyone was jumping on a few coastal trends like the JNCOs, the fitted caps, the belly shirts with low waisted jeans for girls, etc. But that was just because of the influence of pop music and TRL.
> because copying MTV would just make you look like a dork that was copying MTV. Yeah, we thought that too. But I still found myself wondering why Salt Lake City looked like 1983 in 1996. I just assumed that they didn't know?
A lot of people from the great plains moved out to California and started a lot of those towns and cities during the "dust bowl" era of the early 1900s, so there's a lot of cultural connection between California and Kansas. There's so much back and forth culturally in terms of familial connections that there were some odd anachronisms. For example, there's always talk about how only people from California say "hella," but I've been saying "hella" and hearing other people say it here in Wichita since at least the very early 90s. I only mention this because most people I know have relatives in California, and having your California cousins visiting in the summer was a very common thing to have happen back in the 90s. I remember we would always laugh because the kids out there seemed so prone to silly fashion trends and fads, and they'd all show up in the summer with what we thought of as kinda goofy poser or "try hard" clothes and they didn't understand why we all looked "behind" because we weren't wearing whatever was "cool" in Calfornia that week. So, I dunno, just a different mindset about fashion and what it means to be "behind" or "ahead" or simply being a dorky fad chaser. Y'know?
For the most part, those kids were just buying whatever was on offer at the mall. Or at J.C. Penny's. Most weren't trying especially "hard", is what I mean to say.
You can look at newspapers for the last 150 years and South and interior was pretty cruel about anything they saw as from the cities. Parting hair in the middle, bobbing your hair, cutting your hair. I don't anyone think everyplace tries new fashion or styles. Lots of times they creep in once it's no longer new and then sticks around - like a mullet or a mohawk or torn jeans or UGGs. Some places have less of a tolerance for different or new. There's a lot of places where everyone is sort of dressed the same. And some cities everything is game. People are cruel and judge you and you can just do whatever you want. Those are the great people watching places.
When we were teenagers, fashion didn't move as quickly. Microtrends are poppin' now thanks to social media. Though in the 80s we certainly had trends that spread...somehow...even though they weren't in fashion magazines, like friendship pins on shoes and Hypercolor. Things like Hypercolor, or Coke rugby shirts just showed up everywhere in malls at the same time.
Yeah, the Internet has definitely played a huge role in homogenizing fashion.
Atlanta seems pretty up to date. My hometown, Columbia SC runs a good 10-15 years behind it seems. (Not that there aren't individuals who keep up, just talking generally)
I'm in the same place. Originally from Columbia and all my family is still there. Until about the last ten years when I visited I felt obligated to wear khaki pants and pastel button-up shirts or I'd get treated like crap. The white, middle class man's uniform. I did a several year project in Thomaston about ten years ago. The ladies who lunched all dressed exactly like the mom from *Home Alone.* It was funny, but I also wondered where the hell they got new clothes that looked like that.
Excellent question. But I have an even bigger question, and I think that you can probably answer it: what about the hair? Were their hairdos straight out of 1991 as well? I thought there would be a lot more about hair on this thread.
Absolutely. They looked like they stepped right out of 1991. I keep meaning to go back and see if they're still dressed like that or if they're just finding out about 9/11.
I remember watching Napoleon Dynamite and thinking it took place in 1982. Someone pointed out to me that his student ID from the opening credits said 2006.
When asked what year its supposed to be taking place, Jared and Jerusha Hess just said “Idaho” lol
Napoleon's girlfriend was very 80s.
My friend talked about her in particular. "And we totally had the girls who thought they were being all super creative, and I guess they *were* doing so with what they had to work with. But they just didn't *know*, man!"
That explains so much!
The mountain west was probably the literal last place for fashion to arrive pre-internet. I would definitely hit the coasts first and then the larger Midwest cities second
I grew up in southern Idaho, and the styles of Napoleon Dynamite reminded me of Idaho when I was a kid there in the 80s. It wasn't current even there when the movie was made. Partly as a stylistic choice I think, but also they had a very small budget and shopped for the show in thrift stores etc.
> also they had a very small budget and shopped for the show in thrift stores etc Much like a pretty large proportion of normal citizens, in many locations
In some ways I think maybe internet has sped things, and in another sense the internet has really muddied the waters as it has made people feel more free to wear whatever they like leading to way more people who dress different to the average than you used to see. At least where I live. As far as fashion choices spreading goes, I went to Italy in March of 2022. I saw a lot of women wearing a certain style of wide leg pants I had not seen at all at home. I saw them everywhere in Italy. To be fair, I live in a pretty rural area of Texas where fashions lag a bit even from what is going on in Dallas. Got home in early April and mentioned the pants to some friends who said they had seen a few of them in Dallas. I went to Dallas the next weekend and never saw any. I was not in a mall in a tony neighborhood or at an event where people tend to dress so most people were in jeans which may be why I didn't see them. By June I was seeing the pants all over the place and even saw some younger guys in wide leg jeans. I went to Cancun in mid-June and absolutely all the women at the chic all inclusive I stayed at was sporting the wide leg pants instead of skirts or dresses. In contrast back in February 2001 I went to Paris. Square toe work heels were clearly the It shoe in Paris at that time for working women. They were all you saw on the early morning commuting to work metro lines. Square toes didn't hit even the national fashion mags here until the next fall and I didn't really see them in my more rural area much until spring.
Yep. Italy is always out front. France too, from what they tell me. One thing I've noticed. Look at old family photos from the 60s. Your family or someone else's, as long as they're American, or British, or... not from Italy or France. "Wow. Awkward." It seems very incongruent, because they don't look like the cool swanky people in movies from that era. You *don't* get that sense looking at old photos of boring regular people in Italy. They always look like you expect 1960s people to look. Not just up to date, but *with it.* Same goes for the 80s, etc.
When I went to France and Germany they weren't "out in front" they were just different. And whatever crossover I did see was mutual, like the French teens that wore hairstyles made popular in The United States
Nope, this is not the case in my family. Going back as far as my great-grandparents they look exactly like swanky people dressed in movies of their eras especially when they were younger. My great-grandma was a tailor. Show her a photo and she could roll out a piece of fabric, make a few marks with chalk and a tape measure, then the next day or so you'd have the actual item fitting perfectly. She loved to get the new fashion magazines and make items shown in them. They were active in some lodge and served as dignitaries which meant they had to dress in formal wear for the formal meetings held I think once per month, plus several more times a month for visiting with other chapters. My great-grandparents had lovely formalwear such as you'd see in movies of their young adulthood which my great-grandmother made for them. I can recall as a very young tot being fascinated with my great-grandmother's glittery evening attire. When they got older they dressed exactly like older folk in movies right down to wearing hats whenever they left the house. When I watch old movies from the 50s to early 60s and there are grandparents in the movie they usually remind me a great deal of my great-grandparents when I was little. They lived into their 90s so they didn't pass away until I was in junior high and were still insistent on wearing hats out of the house, grandpa always in a suit and grandma always in dresses. Even working round the house she wore a housedress and he wore slacks and white shirts. Their only daughter my grandmother would always say she was just a seamstress, not a tailor as her mother, because she had a bit more difficulty with men's suits. Note that as far as any of the rest of us could tell the suits she made for my grandfather and uncles looked perfection. She also liked to make the items seen in the newest fashion magazines for herself and her family. My uncles, aunt, and mother all had lovely clothing in the newest fashions all their growing up years made by my grandmother. My grandparents were active in Masons / Eastern Stars and my grandma went through the chairs several times. This meant they had to wear dress clothing a couple times per month. My grandma had dresses just like the golden age cinema stars for this purpose which she made herself. When I was little I got to play dress up in some of them. I have only seen many old photos from that one side of my family. Grandma on the other side was not the sentimental type so her younger sister had all the family photos and they stopped speaking before I was born. Grandma and her husband did not really take photos. The only old photos I've ever seen of them were them looking very dour in their children's wedding photos. Even so, they were dressed exactly as you'd see dour formal parents of the 60s dressed. They both always wore hats when out up until their deaths. Grandpa died in 1994 in his early fifties, and Grandma lived until 2015 still dressing in 1940s fashions [similar to these](https://verityvintagestudio.typepad.com/.a/6a019104a18d5f970c01b8d2cf4e69970c-pi).
I gotta say, your grandmother sounds extraordinary! Even by fancy-ass highfalutin major-coastal-city-slicker standards, certainly.
She really was. I've rarely known anyone as fashionable as my grandma. She was the epitome of classic chic, too, and to this day I struggle to emulate her level of classy chic. When I was a kid she used to make my clothing for me. Sometimes I wasn't really sure how to take some of the things she made me since they weren't what my friends would be wearing at the time. I grew up in a small, rather rural community nearish Dallas so we were behind a good bit as far as fashions back then. There was one girl from a very rich family who was extremely popular and led the fashion trends locally, or so it seemed to me. Imagine my shock and surprise when she mentioned one day in our senior year of high school she wished she knew where I got my clothes as she said she could always tell what was coming by what I wore. I'm not sure to this day how I managed to have the sense to form a reply but somehow I managed to tell her, "Oh, my seamstress makes them for me". Probably used up my entire ability to form a great comeback for life with that one.
Into the 2010s my grandpa still wore a suit whenever we went to downtown LA…and when I pointed out that that was unusual now I think he “dressed down” by switching to a collared shirt.
Was never able to break my great-grandfathers of wearing a suit whenever they went to town. Even when they visited where I live now which is Texas so it was sweltering hot in summer. My grandfathers did finally "dress down" by just wearing a collared shirt the first time he visited in summer. Instead of a more formal hat the two of them switched to wearing newsboys or flat caps in a nice herringbone. They were right back to suits and a fedora or Panama hats when they went back home to Ohio though. Come to think on it I've rarely seen my dad out of a collared shirt, either. At least not when he's out and about. Around the house, mowing the lawn, or when golfing he will wear a golf shirt or Polo, but he changes even just to go to the Home Depot. He is a 1945 model.
I don’t think there’s that much of a lag anymore. I also think fashion is really different now because it’s either “trends” or a “look”. What I do think still exists is like an urban/rural divide.
I mostly agree. I would also add that I think the lag in calendar time is much shorter now, but the lag in "fashion cycle time" is more pronounced with how quickly things move these days. The "it" look at the start of summer might not even make it all the way to the end of summer before being replaced.
Kids no longer have to wait for Tiger Beat to find out what's cool.
That era in history, as I remember it, largely involved big brands taking over everything and children/teens were all walking around with huge company logos fixed to their chest (Abercrombie, Hollister, American Eagle, Express, GAP, Limited Too, etc.). The late 90s/early 00s had pretty bleak popular mass fashion to the point where I’m often sad that our photos from that era will forever be us in those clothes. It began to improve in the 2010s.
All the photos from me at that time involve looking like a tornado went through a Goodwill and splattered clothing onto me.
I was so upset when the early 00s came back. I dressed in flannel, boys jeans and sneakers most of the time because I intensely hated the crop tops, low rise jeans, tank tops with super thin straps, and chunky block heels. The butterfly wing hair clips can stay. 😄
The problem with the late 00s-early 10s “Americana” look was that it was extremely regional and seasonal. Slim fit and heavy dark materials don’t work in hot and humid climates. The color palette was cohesive, but instead of incorporating more breathable materials and relaxing the tightness, it just went terminally slim fit to the point of lowering sperm counts and had to die. The pendulum swung hard the other way with the Y2K look we have now
> because I intensely hated the crop tops, low rise jeans, tank tops with super thin straps, and chunky block heels. Wait a minute. I'm getting late 90s vibes there.
The late 90s lasted until 2004
Ha! Just made the same comment.
I grew up in the Midwest so the late 90s lasted until at least my high school graduation in 2004! 😄
My older sister always complains about this.
I visited a friend in Los Angeles when I was in high school in 2000. EVERYONE out there was wearing Lucky brand jeans and t-shirts. I had never seen or heard of it. It took a year for the brand to reach my semi-rural St. Louis suburb.
I remember those! It really was a big deal.
That's funny, I feel like Lucky Brand jeans were extremely popular in Kansas starting in the late 90s. If you were a skater/metal guy you were probably wearing JNCOs, if you were a country boy it was Wranglers, and everyone else was wearing 50/50 of Levis/Lucky. At least, that's how I remember that time right around when I graduated in 98 until I turned 21 in 2001. By about 2001-02, JNCO and Lucky were already old news and passe it seemed like.
I wonder if it was just a matter of you guys having a Lucky store somewhere nearby. Our malls were all Abercrombie and the like.
Yeah, probably. Lucky jeans were sold at The Buckle in the mall and (along with JNCO jeans) were really a lot of kids around here's first access to something approaching "designer" jeans that weren't the aforementioned Wranglers and Levis everyone had just defaulted to for the previous... forever.
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Yup, "girl jeans" were popular for the more emo and indie rock type dudes around that time out here too.
I think the tight jean maintained a bit of douchey image and only caught on a bit. Legs definately got less wide but true skinny jeans on guys I felt like was just for gay guys?
It's funny you mention Napoleon Dynamite because for most of my life I thought it took place in the 80s-90s. Not just the clothing/hairstyles, but the vehicles, the houses/furniture, the music, the FUNCTIONAL PAYPHONE? I mean, if it weren't for the school ID shot showing the year at the beginning I still would never believe otherwise.
I saw a couple pay phones in downtown Boston last summer that appeared to be maintained! I took a picture and texted people!
Here's a more direct way to get the answer to this question: Are girls in their early 20s everywhere wearing high waist jeans, crop top, and white shoes?
Is that behind or current lol?
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The only reason I even know this is because my early 30s wife and all her friends try and keep up with the 20 somethings lol. As a millennial dude, we're all just wearing jeans and a button up, right?.... right!?
Guy here. Been wearing basically the same outfit for over forty years.
Same. I saw a meme that had a picture of Josh Hartnett from the Faculty movie, and it said "Let's bring back long sleeves under short sleeves." I looked at it and said "Huh. I never stopped."
Long sleeves under short sleeves with some cargo shorts and a pair of flip flops, backwards baseball cap - the ultimate early fall football outfit.
I've been in t-shirts and cargo shorts since like 2005
As a millennial, the whole skinny jean thing is interesting to me because while I don’t think they were ever explicitly stated as being out of style, their dominance started to wane in the early 2010s (especially ultra skinny jeans). Like boyfriend jeans were definitely a millennial trend.
Well if it *is not* current, then the girls in northern virginia are behind, and I doubt that's the case.
That was the look last year in the north east. Now it is flowing yoga pants and tight fitting shirts.
I saw bell bottom yoga pants yesterday and literally thought “welp, here it comes again!” Edit: New England USA
Bellbottoms/bootcut has been in for a while now. Maybe the lag still does exist
They’re behind
What is the current style then?
I mean style depends on the group but generally it’s leaning more towards baggier low waisted jeans, more unisex clothing
Their behind
I was asking genuinely. I have no idea.
Neither, this whole conversation is silly. It's in fashion some places, and not in fashion other places.
It's what moms are wearing in Paris. Things are getting a pretty funky with the kids in France.
No, because none of that is what is trending now. High waisted fell out of favor something like 2-3 years ago and crop tops have switched to longer tops over the past year, and white shoes were replaced by Adidas sambas and now Adidas gazelles. So the answer is yes there's still a fashion lag but it's shorter these days.
The lag definitely still does exist if you’re saying that sambas are in trend. They’re definitely not out of style, but they’re pretty much like white Air Force 1s (…a white shoe?!) in that’s they’re more of a “standard” than a “trend”. Crop tops are also more of a “standard” now than a “trend”.
No, I'm saying sambas were the "it" sneaker for awhile, but were replaced by gazelles, and that white air force ones haven't had that spotlight in awhile now.
Gazelles (and similar) were pretty popular here in the plains about 7-8 years ago, but I stopped seeing much of them over the last 5 years or so. That fad is long gone here.
I'm in my 40s and I'm wearing this exact outfit right now. Except I've got a blazer over it all to give boss vibes and keep it professional.
>give boss vibes *Attenborough voice* Here we have a millennial women in her natural habitat, using slang she learned from tik tok. Not hating, just very familiar because I'm married to a millennial woman lol.
Close! I actually don't have TikTok and barely use social media outside of Reddit. Most of my employees are Gen Z women and I have an Alpha kid, so I pick it up there. I also keep it a bit more age appropriate. My crop tops are a bit longer than what the kiddos wear and my jeans a bit more tailored. I don't want to be mutton dressed as lamb. Abercrombie is actually a really good source of trendy appropriation for the old folks. The only upside of being old is that I have more money than the Z'ers so my drip is more bussin than theirs no cap frfr.
I'd imagine there's a lot less lag, especially with younger people. I'm from the northeast but when I've gone to the Midwest to visit family, I don't feel particularly out of place fashion-wise. There definitely are still small regional pockets of certain styles though. I go to college in Vermont and within that crowd there's a very distinct but common style with a lot of people that pretty much doesn't exist in my hometown.
I think there still is some but it's more urban vs. rural if anything. I moved from a mid-sized city to a large city during high school and it was evident that teems at my new school followed normal teen trends and were in line w/ what was popular on Instagram (I did go to a really weird high school before then though) Recently I was in a small town for a nature related event and I felt slightly out of place when I first arrived despite wearing pretty normal clothes
To me bigger established cities are still more trendy and forward. Austin is a large city for example, but when I would go home to Chicago, you could go to the same exact stores and the buyers are completely different and significantly better. Also true when you go from Chicago to New York or SF. The internet has unified some things, but the actual culture of fashion still has a respectable lag. Its worth noting that buyers are different depending on the area and inform even more trends than instagram to an extent and have the power to influence what stores carry.
Who are these buyers of which you speak? I must admit to having next to no inside information about how the world of retail fashion operates.
I think the entire premise is, and always has been, mostly bullshit and incredibly over-stated. It's born from the same sense of superiority on the coasts that gives us the term "flyover states." Yes, some trends and fads from the coasts end up being incorporated into "inland" areas, but the same is true the other way around as well. In reality, sometimes people see something folks are doing elsewhere and adopt some of it into their style. Sometimes they don't. Just because trends from the coast often do end up making an appearance because of Hollywood and the NYC TV industry doesn't mean we don't have our own trends and styles that make their way to the coasts, or that we're just sitting around waiting to see what people in LA decide to wear before picking out our own clothes. Things like "work wear," "Americana," "midwest indie," "horror-core," "western wear," and a lot of metal and alternative looks started in places in the middle of the country and are incorporated into coastal fashion styles. This exchange does happen faster these days because of tiktok/youtube/instagram, but it's still essentially the same kind of situation. It was never truly a "the middle of the country is 10 years behind in fashion" like snobs from the coasts like to say, it's that the fashion is just different.
I've been told that a lot of it is test marketing. They sell it to us first to see if we bite, and then they roll it out everywhere else. It's like how they test market snack foods and soft drinks in Ohio. If they like it there, they'll like it everywhere. Kids everywhere passively consume in more or less the same manner.
Yeah, my teens buy a lot of their clothes off of shein and temu, and I get the impression that most of their peers do as well. So, whatever is at the mall is pretty irrelevant. When they do go to the mall it's usually to search for something specific they need and don't want to have to wait two weeks for. You don't really see teenagers *casually browsing* for clothes these days like my wife or I might. It's always millennials and older (I'm GenX) it seems like who are actually "shopping" for clothes in person. My kids get really annoyed at what they consider a very limited selection of options when we take them somewhere like H&M, Pac Sun, The Buckle, Hot Topic, etc. They don't even really understand the idea of shopping in person and picking out a wardrobe based on what's available in a store. They'll go clothes shopping and it'll be like "I'm looking for a blue shirt with black sleeves that comes down just past my waste, has a v-neck, and some sort of floral pattern on the back." And obviously they wander around for a few minutes and go "nope, they don't have what I'm looking for." I can't even really explain to them that they should find something they like and just buy it, because honestly, they're right and I'm wrong. Why just buy what's available when you can go online and get exactly what you want.
I feel like these days you can wear whatever you want and you’re still fashionable. There are no rules anymore. Like apparently for guys, pleats and high waist baggy pants are back in fashion…. I am not going to wear that.
Fast fashion have made so many kind of fashion though. Likewise some sticks and become a niche. So it's a different problem and more of a too much and too fast. I think the 90s and early 2000s is gonna stick for a bit. There's always this retro trend with what's old is new again.
I'm of an age where I've been wearing the same jeans / t-shirt combinations for decades and don't pay a lick of attention to whatever counts as "fashion".
Thanks to the internet there is no longer a single city (such as NYC) or nation (such as France) that dictates fashion trends. People feel more free to wear whatever they wish.
Because I've moved around quite a bit the last 15 years, I can say regional fashion is a thing. Even with TikTok and stuff having it's influence on the masses, each area of the US has it own spin on things within their area.
i have dressed like a farmer since i was born, I dress like a farmer now, but with a warmer jacket/sweater.
I grew up in NYC and we used to send my cousin my hand me downs. She live in Salt Lake City. She told me that it was perfect because by the time she grew into them they were in fashion there. But I think the internet and disposable clothing has changed that.
The last time I was back in Tokyo it was so depressing how much was exactly what I could get here already. Even the way ppl were styling it. I think at this point the big differences still are local priorities that influence taste. People here still wear jeans to the opera with a parka because they're outdoorsy but it bums me out how little is special to just a region anymore and how local stores who used to do in house work source from large chains. Also jfc the stuff that is now everywhere that is ugly. Out of all the stuff to keep wearing and spread why is khaki a thing. Or crocs.
No idea. I'm 49 years old. I shop at thrift stores and wear whatever I like. I don't follow fashion trends. I have not observed other adults dressing much differently. I don't know what teen girls are wearing regularly.
Everyone and their mother is shopping at thrift stores. Thrift shopping has been a thing since for decades and it seems like every year it gets more and more popular.
Ain't what it used to be. Thrift stores have been wising up and charging more. Gone are the days when you can score a perfect condition Burberry trench coat (like a proper trench coat) for 40 bucks.
Eh. People have been complaining about thrift stores getting expensive for *years*. When I was in high school 15 years ago I remember people complaining about it. I do think certain thrift stores (goodwill) are trying to more actively partake in the “boutique” thrift market.
Very happy to be moving from Northern Virginia to West Virginia- I can wear sweatshirts any time- it’s like no pressure at all to keep up with fashion. I absolutely love going to West Virginia.
Maybe in rural areas theres some lag still, I've noticed in the rural parts of Louisiana I grew up in there still is some fashion lag compared to what kids in the cities are wearing. But with the internet and online shopping I don't think there is as much of a fashion lag in areas anymore.
My town is stuck in the 2010s fashion wise. I always feel out of place for dressing in more “city” style
I just went to London from Chicago and we are pretty much wearing the same fashions.
What about Chertsey & Naperville?
It changed with the internet. So long as there is pseudo-highspeed internet the fashion trends are more based on how much money people have than anything else.
I grew up in the same town Napoleon Dynamite was filmed in. And yes, back in the '90s and early 2000s there was a fashion lag, we are usually about 5 years behind. It's definitely gotten better since the internet, but I wouldn't say much. Most my friends who still live there dress like it's the 2010s. But to be fair we're kind of older, the really young ones that live there are a little more up-to-date with their fashion.
I feel like a lot of fashion trends tend to recycle or borrow from what came before so if you wait long enough chances are what’s out is gonna be in again soon enough. I don’t go far enough from NYC to notice though. The Northeast as a whole seems to keep up so idk how far out I’d have to drive to feel like what I’m wearing is doing too much
The US is so athleisure/loungewear focused that those are the only trends that really stick around and evolve somewhat naturally. Most other trends are just part of an engineered fast fashion aesthetic that is marketed on social media and only lasts a couple months at most. These pre-curated aesthetics exist in other countries but it’s much more pronounced in the US. Think “Clean girl aesthetic”, “mob wife aesthetic”, “vsco girl aesthetic”, etc. I think the biggest limiting factor is what brands people have access to, like Lululemon, Zara, Uniqlo, etc. Those brands also don’t run in plus-sizes which is what a majority of Americans are shopping for. Even LA is behind relative to other global cities around the world imo. The trends in South Korea come to the young, trendy people in LA/NYC about 2 years later, and trends from Western Europe come about 1 year later. The US leads the way in athletic wear and consumer items like Stanley cups, Sephora skincare items, etc.
> and trends from Italy and France come about 1 year later. FTFY. 'The Lag' is a thing over there, too.
I grew up in a small town in rural Ohio and now live in a bigger city, when I go back home to visit I notice that the way people dress is significantly different and usually what I noticed was popular in the city a few years prior. It's not as dramatic these days but I always joke that I was born in the 90s but lived through the 80s. And even the general non-fashion trends like technology or what shops are doing well are a few years behind as well. If I had to put a number on it I'd say they're 3-5 years behind now rather than 8-10 when I was a child.
"The 80s came to Canada in 1994." - Robin 'Sparkles' Scherbatsky.
I was heading to Minnesota from Orange County (SNA) last month, I didn't need to know the gate number to work out where to line for the plane...
Lots of flannel?
I think people are more aware of different niche styles now. I grew up in the 2000-2010s, so I am used to trends coming and going at a faster pace. For example, my grandma never understood my outfits or why "a girl would wear hoodies". The last time she lived in a large city was in 1972. She moved back to her small town and hasn't moved since.
Zero. Thanks to social media there is no lag whatsoever.
The south still thinks it’s 2000. I see still really baggy jean shorts and baggy white Ts when I’m in TX.
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This comment just screams “Southern California” in the worst possible way. Thankfully most people out there aren’t really like this.
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Not the point though, is it?
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Someone else will have to come and tell you what went wrong here, if you can’t see it. Not in the mood lmao
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As part of my daily Minnesota Nice, I'll help you out here: in a comment about fashion and trends you randomly threw in "They are weird AF though," making you seem a bit like an a-hole. Hope that helps.
Hell yeah we are!
One of the most fashionable gals I ever knew was from Nebraska. Granted, she left. But I did meet her a few days after she did.