Day 7025 of quarantine.

How is everyone handling social distancing and self-isolating? In these strange and confusing times, we thought we would take a light-hearted trip down memory lane, and look at some of the weird and seldom wonderful fashion trends of the past. With a few current trends thrown in for good measure.

The moral of the story is: things could always be worse, and these trends could make a frightful reappearance when we all come out of our Coronavirus isolation. Now there’s a thought…  

See through heels

From Yeezy and Dolce and Gabbana to Zara and Topshop, we can’t go anywhere without seeing transparent heels these days. We are seeing see through heels in both high end and high street shops right now, and we still don’t understand it. We get that they have the potential to match any colour, but we still don’t see the appeal. Are we missing something?  

Car mat skirts

Car mats – but make them fashion! If you couldn’t get on board with the brand’s controversial sock trainers, then look away now. Balenciaga has come up with an even more perplexing trend – car mat skirts. They’re exactly what they sound like; no further explanation needed… 

Cycling shorts

Akin to clear sandals, cycling shorts are one of the biggest current trends that we can’t seem to get on board with. Givenchy, Versace, and Fendi are just a few of the big names that have put their stamp on cycling shorts, but we still give them a big thumbs down. They do nothing to flatter most women’s figures, and don’t help us achieve the feminine silhouette and chic aesthetic of our dreams. Unless you are a competitive cycler, you should have hundreds – perhaps even thousands – of other sartorial options before you reach for cycling shorts as a last resort. Are we alone here?

Ripped tights and stockings

We put our tights on so carefully and delicately to avoid ripping them, and even carry clear nail polish with us to stop ladders from forming just in case we get a hole when we’re out. So the ripped tights trend is one which perplexes us to this very day. Although it does give us an excuse if we have a hosiery related accident and the nail polish can’t save us… 

‘Dripping’ tights

Another unsettling hosiery trend was something referred to as ‘dripping’ or ‘splattered’ or ‘melting’ tights. This was a great time to forgo the painting overalls, as you could make your own unique DIY sets yourself for a fraction of the price. Once upon a time, if your tights didn’t look like they had paint splattered on them, they were deemed unfashionable.

Jeans with clear patches

Remember when distressed denim was considered to be so last season, and in its place, was distressed denim with actual plastic poking through the holes? Unfortunately, we still haven’t forgotten…

Plastic jeans

And if plastic patches weren’t enough, somehow, someone thought that we needed plastic jeans. If they were marketed as waterproof trousers, we might have understood the intention, but there didn’t seem to be a valid reason for bringing these into our lives. Thankfully, these disappeared just as quickly and confusingly as they came.

Asymmetric trousers

In theory, this sounds like the perfect trend for the indecisive among us. In reality, it was nothing short of a hot mess. Asymmetric trousers came in many head-shaking forms. Not only could we have one skinny leg juxtaposed with a flared or wide legged trouser, but we also had the option to wear hotpants on one side, and skinny, long jeans on the other side. We despair!

Denim over the knee boots

What do you do when you want to seamlessly match your boots to your jeans? Invent over the knee boots that solve your problem in a handy two in one solution.

Denim boots – now with pockets!

As the demand for over the knee denim boots grew, so did the demand for other variations. The most interesting (read: weird) variation were denim boots with pockets on then. Were we expected to store our mobile phones, keys and credit cards in there? Your guess is as good as ours…

Double jeans

Not to be confused with double denim, which may be frowned upon by some people, but actually holds a dear place in our hearts. (And not just for 90s nostalgia/Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake reasons.) Double jeans was an innovative (but we still say baffling) idea dreamed up by Natasha Zinko, whereby the designer thought that we should have the option to give the illusion of wearing both high waisted and low rise jeans at the exact same time. And clearly she was onto something, as the jeans actually sold out in just a few days. We’ll stick with single waisted jeans for the time being; although we might have changed our minds by the end of the lockdown period…

Sleeves

On their own. Big, voluminous sweater sleeves with no sweater attached. That’s all…

Cage skirts and trousers

We’re all for voluminous silhouettes, but the cage skirt took things a little too far. Things got even more bewildering when caged trousers also came on the scene.

Mud splattered denim

Back in 2017, Barracuda brought us mud splattered distressed jeans – and charged us hundreds of Euros for the pleasure. If you didn’t look like you’d just come back from a mud run, you weren’t doing it right!

Platform Crocs

Crocs are undeniably one of the Marmite pieces of footwear, so many people would put them on this list as they are. But we think that even those who do have a soft spot for Crocs on their dress-down days will be scratching their heads over the idea of platform Crocs. The shoes that were designed for ultimate comfort are suddenly no longer fit for purpose. Discuss…

PS: Click here to have a sneaky preview of our New Arrivals

Have a great day!