Newstalgic 2000s: Online

The futurism of 2000s fashions: the boldness, the metallic colours, the absurd amounts of leather and latex… As a product of society’s optimism about the imminent technological developments of the new millennium, the fantastical clothing styles of the late 1990s reflected a cultural utopia that masked a bleak reality riddled with anxiety.

Social anxiety built around an impending ‘apocalypse’ leading up to the start of the year 2000

And bleak that reality was – or so it was thought. The ‘Y2K bug’ was a flaw in computer system programmes that stored dates with the year represented in only its final two digits. This meant that, at the turn of the millennium, they would be unable to distinguish 2000 from 1900 and could collapse the infrastructure that relied on them.

As the public were made aware, social anxiety built around an impending ‘apocalypse’ leading up to the start of the year 2000. The issue was ultimately drawn to an anticlimactic conclusion, as it was attended to and mostly fixed in time.

However, fashion and popular culture had a role in numbing the anxiety around the predicted technological problems of the new era. Not only did the Y2K style, with its courageous dress and overexaggerated colours, represent society’s optimistic imaginations about the turn of the millennium, but it also softened and romanticised people’s underlying concerns at the time.

The rise of AI and its various threats, along with the addictive nature of social media, and its impacts on people’s mental health, are hot topics

It is now acknowledged that this anxiety shared even with our current culture. The rise of AI and its various threats, along with the addictive nature of social media and its impacts on people’s mental health, are hot topics. The difference is that the relief fashion was able to provide from social anxiety in the 2000s is now, instead, produced by the exact technology that causes it: TikTok videos, Instagram reels, and the general escapism of social media.

Fashion is now just as ingrained in technology as technology is in fashion

What’s more is that being online has gamified our experience of clothes and how they are valued. The influence of mainstream celebrities over clothing styles has been extended to, if not often replaced by, the mass influence of social media personalities. Fashion is now just as ingrained in technology as technology is in fashion.

Our consumption of clothes has been largely digitalised, especially with fast fashion shopping platforms and even second-hand sites like Vinted. Fashion has become meshed with the immense amount of online content we encounter, and thus somewhat exhausted by it.

It feels like less of a coincidence, then, that we now look back with such fondness towards the futurism and creativity of 2000s fashions. Yes, they seem to have been less overwhelming than the vast array of styles we now consume from across social media platforms. However, they also represented a time which, despite its challenges, once provided us with more optimism, hope, and a point at which the direction of technology’s developments was less anxiety-inducing.

A recent article by Vogue features a photo taken of guests attending Spring 2027 runway shows in Tokyo. One of them wears a bright orange vest top, featuring the phrase “towards the 2000s”. The other individual in the photo adorns clear, narrow glasses and blue-toned clothing that echoes the Gen X Soft Club style.

It’s ironic that much of the 2000s were built on futurism, and we now look backwards to recreate the time in unease over the progression it once looked forward to – bedazzled flip phones have never been so useless, yet have become part of the modern ‘2000s aesthetic’.

The genre has increasingly appeared to adopt dystopian styles, which is perhaps another indication of our discomfort with the present

This is all rather pessimistic. As with the 2000s, there’s still lots of positive anticipation about the potential of technology. The futurism and sci-fi themes that high fashion continues to display remain relevant. Prada’s S/S 25 Womenswear runway collection features the metallics, bold shapes, and vivid colours that were so inherent to the Y2K style, being a “nod to the infamous space race” of the 1960s – the period that, as we know, inspired 2000s clothing. Saying this, the genre has increasingly appeared to adopt dystopian styles, which is perhaps another indication of our discomfort with the present.

Therefore, the futurism of 2000s fashion is closer than we think. In our everyday lives, the Apple iBook has turned into the MacBook, flip phones into cell phones, and the Sony Walkman into the ‘performative’ entity that is wired earphones. On the surface-level, and thanks to our obsession with appearances, they seem to be part of the ‘fit’ or ‘aesthetic’ – technology is an article of personal fashion.

Beyond this, though, our ‘newstalgia’ is clearly rooted in more than just appearances. While the 1990s saw anxiety surrounding technology, there still existed a positive outlook towards its development in the new millennium. This is not to mention the internet’s massive progression during this time resulting from the ‘dot-com bubble’.

While fashion was able to alleviate that existing anxiety, it seems it cannot do as much for us in the present, considering its digitalisation. Looking back to the past in fashion is, of course, completely normal. Though, the intensity of our retrospection seems to speak for more. Fashion is no longer an escape from our causes of anxiety (like social media), but is enmeshed with them, and we desire to retrieve a time when it wasn’t.

It’s not than we shouldn’t look back to the 1990s and 2000s. They deserve all the attention that we give them. Yet, if we adapt, instead of copy, their fashions, keeping the iconic, optimistic ‘aesthetic’ while shaping it to our own modern styles and tastes, a more productive form of ‘newstalgia’ can materialise. Maybe, then, we can be more comfortable existing in the ‘now’.