The inevitable has finally happened, and all it took was a new year and just enough time to pass. On Instagram, a headline and corresponding social post from a popular fashion outlet declared skinny pants a trend for 2023. This was bound to happen, of course. Trends always come back one way or another. But the demonizing to praising pipeline that the skinny pant (in particular, the skinny jean) went through in the last five years feels particularly sinister.
It began with the overall declaration that they were uncool. It was presented as a generational trend war in which some people on social media explained to Millenials that our beloved skinny jeans were cringe-worthy and aging us (the horror!). Immediately following was the blowback from the loudest set of 30-somethings who said they would die on the skinny pant hill if it's the last thing they do.
Still, the fast fashion brands caught wind and used it as an opportunity to sell every version of not skinny pants your heart could ever desire or despise. "Boyfriend," fit? Everywhere. Super baggy like it's 1995? Done! Kick flare? A compromise. Even a boot cut, which we thought met its death? She's back, baby. Anything to make you switch over and invest in something new.
Skinny pants, the ones we held so close to our hearts and tucked into our boots, found themselves in heaping piles of clothes in landfills and in secondhand markets around the world.
Not everyone got rid of them, of course. A lot of people didn’t. However, the discourse aided a noticeable shift in popular style. It stayed that way for a few years until the inevitable gargle of a trend returning hit social media. Skinny pants are coming back like they never left, some say. They're on the runways at Celine and on celebrities. Slowly, they are trickling their way through the algorithm that will tempt you to get a new pair.
The lesson that follows this rant is that trends are marketing. Nothing has left, and nothing is back. It's all perception and a tool to get us to buy more.
As a fashion writer, I feel strongly about the way trends are framed in media. When there is a collective jump to say something is “out,” it gives us a talking point. I understand that we need to invent ways to talk about the same piece of clothing, but when the story is filled with where and how to buy into the same trend we just said to get rid of two years before, aren't we part of the problem? Don't we have some responsibility to take for perpetuating the idea that clothing is disposable when something new comes along?
Perhaps the idea of something being "out," in the first place is a cliché that we can let go of. Honestly, the trend cycle is moving so fast at this rate, it’s the only option.