With every passing day or week, it can often feel as if there is a new fashion or style trend on the rise. While this phenomenon may feel particularly accelerated with the rise of social media and internet trends and marketing campaigns, the world of fashion and style has been globally showcased and advertised for decades. In the 1960s, brands began to market their Gogo boots on TV; this extended even as far back as the 1920s when flapper styles first started gaining popularity through media depictions. Sometimes, it can almost seem impossible to keep up with the ever evolving trends whether that applies to the style of one's jeans, the cut of a t-shirt, or which brand of shoe is going to sell out that day. And while there's never any guarantee what will be popular tomorrow, it can certainly be fun to try to predict what is to come.
Many new style trends can be creative and unique, but oftentimes the most successful and memorable trends are the ones that are reflections of the past. As the fall season rolls around, the incredibly popular Ugg boot is sure to make its return. In actuality, it never went away in the first place, and some have welcomed the possibility of a revival of the taller Ugg boots, rather than the mini or ultra mini versions that have dominated the market in recent years.
Beyond the comfortable slipper-like look of Ugg boots, senior Sachin Rozycki-Shah believes a more durable and rugged boot may be spotted around Berkeley High School. “I feel like a lot of people will wear (Timberland boots),” Rozycki-Shah said, “I feel like it just kind of comes back and it goes out so that could come back in fall too.” Shoes can often serve as the statement piece of an outfit, or can be purely practical. Timberland boots, or often referred to as “Tim’s,” are a fashionable spin on work boots and rose to popularity in the 1990s as both a streetwear staple and outdoor option. They are the perfect blend between function and fashion.
“I feel like as jorts and shorts in general become more popular, people will want taller shoes to balance them out,” BHS sophomore Hannah TerBeek said, “and they were popular like 20 years ago, and fashion does run in cycles.”
BHS junior Jaya Baudart-Gehlawat references another aspect of fashion and trends: colors. “Red is going to be the next butter yellow,” Baudart-Gehlawat said. A light pastel shade of yellow commonly known as “butter yellow” has been an incredibly popular color seen in many prominent clothing brands in the past few months. During the sunnier months of the year, clothing brands like Garage and Free People all dropped new seasonal items featuring the light pale yellow color. This is not uncommon, with fashion brands using a specific trendy color to market their products for years. Especially as we now enter cozy fall and move away from the heat of the summer months, it seems entirely possible that a new warm and cherry shade of red may become the next hit color in trending clothing.
Instead of opting for popular name-brand pieces, some may begin to show off rarer distinctive items. “I've seen more random brands coming out. Like before everyone always had Jordans or a certain brand of everything. But I've seen some random shoes I've never seen before come out this year for sure. And I think that'll probably keep happening,” Rozycki-Shah said. This could be in part due to the popularity of unique thrift finds and the delight in obtaining an item that no one else has.
Fashion is a forever changing art form that is never stagnant or boring. It is a descriptive reflection of culture and society at that very moment in time, and many things can influence it, including music, politics, social media, and art. And as a result of the internet now being a platform used to establish and share trends, predicting the next new thing has very little certainty and is rather all about the flow of a society and what influential people decide is innovative. Whether that is an homage to a past trend, like higher Ugg boots, or the rise of a new signature color, fashion trends do certainly come and go, and are always evolving.