Top 10 Aught Fashion Trends We Should Leave Behind in the 'Tweens

Posted at 5:00 AM Jan 11, 2010

By Susan Quesal

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I'll admit that I'm not the most fashion-savvy woman on the planet.  In fact, I've been waiting lo these many years for '90s style to come back so I could wear baggy jeans and flannel shirts all the time without feeling schlubby.  (We're almost there, guys--have you seen how much flannel you can find at Forever 21 now??)  However, the aughts were a more confusing fashion decade for me than any previous decade had been, and, now that they are over, it's time for me to talk some shit.  I hope we can collectively decide to leave these behind as we forge ahead into the century's tweens.

10. The return of Day-Glo

I remember hearing someone say at some point, "Orange is the new pink."  Oh, really?  WE DON'T NEED A NEW PINK BECAUSE WE ALREADY HAVE PINK.  I want to blame Kanye West for this one, but it was a collective effort.  Day-glo wasn't cool in the '80s and it didn't get cool just now.  Unless you are going hunting, there is no reason to wear a shirt that hurts my eyes.

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9. Blonde tips

JT, Sugar Ray, some guy in the BSB--someone in seemingly every aught-era pop band did it.  And by "it," I mean played "just the tip" (and not in that fun way).  This look never seemed flattering to me, but rather screamed, "I can't afford to get a complete dye job despite having sold millions upon millions of records to teenaged girls."  Also, did you ever know a dude IRL who had blonde tips and who didn't gel up his spikes before he left the house?  The only thing worse than blonde-tipped spikes is blonde-tipped flaccid hair.  That's no way to look the morning after, guys.

8. Fedoras

Justin Timberlake looks good in these. Don Draper? Sure. You, me or your friend from high school who is trying to cover up the fact that he is going bald?  Not so much. They just make you look like you're trying too hard. Fedoras: unless you are wearing a gray flannel suit and drinking an Old Fashioned, they are never a good idea.

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7. Tiny dogs in purses

Popularized by Paris Hilton, who history will remember as having become insanely famous for doing absolutely nothing except looking vaguely like a greyhound and not really wearing underwear ever, tiny purse dogs were an aught fashion staple. Everyone was doing it--buying a Chihuahua or teacup pommerdoodle or pugamuffin or whatever and then dying it pink (or orange, when that was the new pink) and putting it in some stupid ballerina outfit and keeping it in their purse where it would mostly just shiver a lot and stare at the world in a really scared way. Animals are not accessories, people.

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6. Popped collars

At some point in the early-to-mid-aughts, everyone decided that they wanted to look like that character James Spader played in every '80s movie he was in. You know, the douchey one in the tiny white running shorts who popped the collar on his pastel colored polo shirt?  Remember when people started layering polo shirts of different colors and popping all the collars so that they would look like peacocks or something? So stupid. Unless it is raining, turn your effing collar down because you look like a goddamn date rapist. (And this is where I would shake my cane at the youths.)