# Has the fashion police really been disbanded (an end of dominant trends)? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 18, 2020, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345 "2020-12-18T16:41:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2020, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/41 "2020-12-20T18:03:07Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > 90s, you could have women wearing the Rachel haircut and men in grunge T-shirts and flannel. Or, you know: FUBU or Adidas jacket, saggy jeans and Timberlands with a Kangol hat and a fade… There’s more than one 90s fashion. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/42 "2020-12-22T15:30:49Z")
> How would you dress for a 2000s, 2010s, or 2020s party? > > Well, the last one is easy. Some sort of face covering and sweat clothes. > > But it’s hard for me to pin down specific fashion trends I could pin down that would identify the decade in the way that a 60s, 70s, 80s or Roarin’ 1920s party does. We’ve only had one year of the 2020s. Saturday Night Fever didn’t come out until 1977 but I’m pretty sure nobody would claim there were no identifiable fashion trends from 1970-1976. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/43 "2020-12-22T15:45:47Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > How would you dress for a 2000s, 2010s, or 2020s party? 2000s wouldn’t be too hard. One way you could go is pink polo shirt, green bookbag, shutter shades (ie, Kanye’s look). Another way is Ed Hardy shirts. You mentioned trucker hats which may be confused for redneck, but people tended to wear fairly stylish clothes (designer jeans, etc) with trucker hats in the 2000s. So dark jeans, Ed Hardy shirt, trucker hat. There you go. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/44 "2020-12-22T19:59:32Z")
Yeah, that makes sense. I forgot about those Ed Hardy shirts. I’m trying to figure out when the “Brooklyn hipster” look started - men with super-skinny jeans, “man bun” hair, thick beard. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/45 "2020-12-22T20:02:30Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > > How would you dress for a 2000s, 2010s, or 2020s party? > > > > Well, the last one is easy. Some sort of face covering and sweat clothes. > > > > But it’s hard for me to pin down specific fashion trends I could pin down that would identify the decade in the way that a 60s, 70s, 80s or Roarin’ 1920s party does. > > We’ve only had one year of the 2020s. The host didn’t specify so just to be safe my wife and I dressed in a flapper outfit / zoot suit w/ fedora and matching N95 respirator masks. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/46 "2020-12-22T20:16:01Z")
Of course the pandemic has made suit and tie wearing even less usual. Canadians aren’t that fond of suit and ties. They like to think this is because they are laid back. However, most Canadians are not very laid back at all. Canadians dress okay, with casual clothes. Who is the fashion police? People who are paid to be obnoxious or opinionated aren’t going anywhere. But post-pandemic, everyone wears track suits or yoga pants. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/47 "2020-12-22T20:25:36Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I’m trying to figure out when the “Brooklyn hipster” look started - men with super-skinny jeans, “man bun” hair, thick beard. I’m lousy at this fashion thing, but I recall that in 2008, when I started associating with young academic people, I was blown away at all those bushy beards, super-skinny jeans and man buns in evidence. Like: where did this come from? ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/48 "2020-12-22T20:40:36Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I’m trying to figure out when the “Brooklyn hipster” look started - men with super-skinny jeans, “man bun” hair, thick beard. > [@Toxylon](#): > > I’m lousy at this fashion thing, but I recall that in 2008, when I started associating with young academic people, I was blown away at all those bushy beards, super-skinny jeans and man buns in evidence. Like: where did this come from? Yeah, the man bun started to go mainstream in the early 2010s. > **[Man buns, explained](https://www.vox.com/2015/9/22/9370895/man-buns)** > > Man buns are are a phenomenon. But where did they come from, and what do they mean? > [@](#): > > [Google Trends](http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=%22man+bun%22&tz=Etc/GMT%2B4) is one useful gauge, showing a few pops of man bun curiosity in 2013, a surge of interest in 2014, and then an unabated rise through 2015. > > That’s a good proxy for public interest, but it’s by no means the first time the phrase showed up. Man buns showed up in [New York Times trend pieces](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/fashion/in-brooklyn-committing-to-a-man-bun.html?_r=0) as early as January 2012, and one of the first Tweets about the man bun came in 2011 ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/49 "2020-12-22T20:42:32Z")
It also seems the hipster beard thing started in 2008. [https://www.beardresource.com/hipster-beard/](https://www.beardresource.com/hipster-beard/) > [@](#): > > Then came 2008, and the hipster trend started. This can be seen from the Google Trends of _“beard”_ , where there is a massive peak in 2008, which happens to fall right into the biggest hype-year of when being a hipster was still – well, hipster. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/50 "2020-12-22T23:32:51Z")
So, I was savvier than I thought, with my 2008 suggestion! ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/51 "2020-12-22T23:46:03Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Last night Hitch (2005) was on TV and the only thing that made that film look dated visually were the old 1080 LCD or plasma televisions with wide bezels and pre-iPhone/Android cell phones. That dress-shirt-over-coordinating-Tshirt look on the men is definitely a dated look to me. Not saying that there aren’t still some guys who wear it, just that it says “not nowadays” to my eye. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/52 "2020-12-23T11:29:27Z")
That sounds about right. And that would seem to coincide with the sudden popularity of the band Mumford & Sons around 2008 to 2012. I remember being at a party with a couple of my college buddies (we were in our late 30s at the time). There were a lot of young Millennials there and my friend made the following comment: “You know how when we were younger, we would make fun of older people wearing ‘mom jeans’, etc? That’s us now. We think we’re cool because we’re wearing current fashions but these kids are thinking 'look at these old dorks with their clothes that actually fit and barely any facial hair. In fact, I bet they shaved this morning! None of them have suspenders or Civil War era shoes. Those flannel shirts look like they bought them at an expensive store. They probably didn’t make ANY of those clothes themselves…” ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/53 "2020-12-23T11:35:54Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Canadians dress okay, with casual clothes. Hence the “Canadian tuxedo.” ---
**Author:** ![GMANCANADA](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gmancanada/32/2837_2.png) [@GMANCANADA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GMANCANADA)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/54 "2020-12-23T15:27:59Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What’s changed is that you’re getting old, and all those youngsters look alike. Fashion continues; you’re just oblivious to it. For instance, how many young women did you see in 2000 wearing leggings? How many young women today do you see not wearing leggings? Could not agree more. As I read the OP my only thought was this sounds exactly like an older person who doesn’t notice or care about current fashion styles and perceives that no one does and they don’t exist. FWIW, I have a son and daughter in their 20’s and they know exactly what’s in style now versus what was in style last year, from colours to hair etc. They know exactly what clothes and accessories to wear to parties or “clubbing”. When you’re in your late teens and early 20’s, you’re in touch with current style and care because you’re focused on attracting a mate. You send signals with your clothing. Once you enter your late 20’s and you have a mate, you get less focused on clothing. Following trends only happens when you have a special occasions As you get older (i.e.: @themapleleaf ) you stop noticing and care less, or to the extent you do, you tend to see the bigger picture of fashion and style and you lose the subtleties. Next you’ll be wearing socks under your sandals and telling yourself it looks fine. 😁 ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/55 "2020-12-23T15:44:52Z")
Some of this is due to technology and health, not just age. We live in an odd time: we know more about health, have better access to food, have access to things like sweeteners which offer taste with few calories, have access to unhealthy foods engineered to appeal to people in up to fifty different categories (fast food, cheezies and ketchup) and have more people carving their _identity_ out of things like diet or CrossFit rather than be more well rounded overall. Many are unhealthy. Most folks do not get enough good exercise, for many reasons. It is very easy to overeat when food is relatively (in historical terms) cheap, plentiful and engineered to appeal. But everyone wants to _look_ healthy. Leggings often make healthy women look great. They can make most women look better than many other choices. Just one opinion, of course, but that’s one reason they are omnipresent now. I’m not sure they were as well-engineered twenty years ago. ---
**Author:** ![themapleleaf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/themapleleaf/32/14349_2.png) [@themapleleaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/themapleleaf)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/56 "2020-12-23T20:08:15Z")
> [@GMANCANADA](#): > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > What’s changed is that you’re getting old, and all those youngsters look alike. Fashion continues; you’re just oblivious to it. For instance, how many young women did you see in 2000 wearing leggings? How many young women today do you see not wearing leggings? > > Could not agree more. > > As I read the OP my only thought was this sounds exactly like an older person who doesn’t notice or care about current fashion styles and perceives that no one does and they don’t exist. > > FWIW, I have a son and daughter in their 20’s and they know exactly what’s in style now versus what was in style last year, from colours to hair etc. They know exactly what clothes and accessories to wear to parties or “clubbing”. > > When you’re in your late teens and early 20’s, you’re in touch with current style and care because you’re focused on attracting a mate. You send signals with your clothing. > > Once you enter your late 20’s and you have a mate, you get less focused on clothing. Following trends only happens when you have a special occasions > > As you get older (i.e.: @themapleleaf ) you stop noticing and care less, or to the extent you do, you tend to see the bigger picture of fashion and style and you lose the subtleties. > > Next you’ll be wearing socks under your sandals and telling yourself it looks fine. 😁 I already said this above, but I never said that there was no fashion at all (I did figuratively use “a “no-fashion” fashion approach” towards the end of my orginal post, but if you re-read the introductory paragraph, you’ll see that I didn’t take that to mean that there is actually no change in fashion anymore), nor did I say that everybody has stopped caring about fashion. I merely postulated that from around ten years ago to the present, a greater variety of styles has been on offer in the shops than in the past, and that while there certainly are trends (I even named quite a few), it seems to be easier (and, I hope, more socially acceptable) to avoid them and build your own style than in previous decades. There’s a reason that I formulated the title as “Has the fashion police really been disbanded?” and not simply as “Is fashion really dead?” There certainly are people who are actively interested in the latest trends, as well as fashion influencers whom some people follow. And certain subtler things do change from season to season when one looks at a wide variety of clothes. For example, the plaid/checked dress shirts that were very popular around the early New Tens are now a tad difficult to find. Nonetheless, I still see a very wide variety of styles on people on the street (so it’s not that everyone looks the same to me now. Everyone looks more varied to me now than they tended to a decade or so ago). It’s interesting how many shops now sell retro-style fashion or specifically cater to people who want to hand-pick their own clothes and footwear styles. I don’t remember such shops in the past, outlets and second hand shops excepted (though there was a vendor circa 2000 advertising itself as catering to those who wanted “normal-looking” clothes and not attention-drawing styles like “Goth” or “runway Haute Couture”; I don’t know how successful it was). Compare that to the situtation in the mid- to late 00s, when almost all womens’ pants had a relatively low waist and you had difficulty finding something that covered more even if you specifically wanted it (and I know for a fact that some women back then wanted higher-waisted pants but couldn’t get them). I still feel like nowadays there are so many options, that not following trends is more of a choice than it was until comparatively recently. You’re right that teenagers are more prone to caring about trends than older people. Someone above mentioned their daughter won’t wear jeans. When I was last in the Toronto area not long ago, I noted that teens tended to wear a lot of black athletic wear in the colder months. This trend hasn’t reflected itself in Prague, where stylish jeans remain quite popular for teens of both sexes. A shout-out to the 80s seems to be in vogue at present - torn jeans and those with a sort of acid-wash look are fairly popular. Still, looking at the population as a whole, you see so many styles, colors and washes of jeans that there doesn’t seem to be any “must-have” style. Whereas a decade or so ago, about the only jeans you could get if you were a woman were low-waisted ones. I happen to be a very visual person with an eye for detail, and when I’m out I carefully study how people look - the things I mention here aren’t just casual observations. I feel that if there are any strong trends nowadays, they _are_ in the subtleties more than in major points. About the most dominant trend this year seems to be (again mainly ladies’) pants with a slightly shorter leg length at or above the ankle (possibly rolled up 1950s-style); this look is very popular among young women now, but unlike the low waists of the noughties, it doesn’t seem to have been uniformly imposed on everyone. A few weeks ago, I saw two girls together and one had the shorter legged jeans while the other wore long, _leopard print flared trousers!_ By the way, I **did** once wear sandals with socks - in my 20s. I used to wear sandals all the time and would wear them with socks to transition to shoes when it started getting colder. I eventually stopped doing that in order to look less grungy (and it took much longer but I eventually stopped wearing sandals altogether). ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/57 "2020-12-23T20:24:20Z")
> [@GMANCANADA](#): > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > What’s changed is that you’re getting old, and all those youngsters look alike. Fashion continues; you’re just oblivious to it. For instance, how many young women did you see in 2000 wearing leggings? How many young women today do you see not wearing leggings? > > Could not agree more. > > As I read the OP my only thought was this sounds exactly like an older person who doesn’t notice or care about current fashion styles and perceives that no one does and they don’t exist. > > FWIW, I have a son and daughter in their 20’s and they know exactly what’s in style now versus what was in style last year, from colours to hair etc. They know exactly what clothes and accessories to wear to parties or “clubbing”. > > When you’re in your late teens and early 20’s, you’re in touch with current style and care because you’re focused on attracting a mate. You send signals with your clothing. > > Once you enter your late 20’s and you have a mate, you get less focused on clothing. Following trends only happens when you have a special occasions > > As you get older (i.e.: @themapleleaf ) you stop noticing and care less, or to the extent you do, you tend to see the bigger picture of fashion and style and you lose the subtleties. > > Next you’ll be wearing socks under your sandals and telling yourself it looks fine. 😁 I think it depends on a number of different factors. Even at 48, I don’t want to look like some dipshit who just grabbed a bunch of random shirts and pants from a bin. I’m not trying to look like a 19 year old I buy buy clothes designed for a grown-ass man that are contemporary, fit well, and are in colors that complement me. Which I guess is the difference. Young people will have all sorts of rules around the minutiae of fashion and accessories. We older folks are content to wear more or less generic contemporary clothes from Brooks Brothers or J Crew or wherever. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/58 "2020-12-23T20:40:16Z")
> [@themapleleaf](#): > > This trend hasn’t reflected itself in Prague, where stylish jeans remain quite popular for teens of both sexes. A shout-out to the 80s seems to be in vogue at present - torn jeans and those with a sort of acid-wash look are fairly popular. This trend was in the US about 10 years ago or so? I haven’t seen very many torn or acid washed jeans in a while. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/59 "2020-12-23T20:43:45Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > We older folks are content to wear more or less generic contemporary clothes from Brooks Brothers or J Crew or wherever. I saw those brands and thought, you must be older than I ;). My age group (40) would more likely say the Gap or Old Navy (yes, I know it’s the same company) or Urban Outfitters for generic contemporary wear - though I have a few J Crew things here and there. I think H&M and Uniqlo may be the generic contemporary for 30somethings (though I do love me some H&M). ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2020, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345/60 "2020-12-24T01:39:57Z")
I’m 48 so about the same age. I tend to dress kind of “preppy corporate casual”. Which reminds me of something I noticed as I got older. When you’re younger, you pretty much only wear “hip casual wear”. Then you start work and need “work clothes”, “casual clothes”, “going out clothes”. But really over the past decades, they have kind of merged. 10-15 years ago I’d feel like a big dork going out in a dress shirt and pants. Now I mostly only go out to the sort of places where you kind of have to dress like that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-fashion-police-really-been-disbanded-an-end-of-dominant-trends/928345.md?page=4)