How 2000s nostalgia is killing the planet
While we're hung up on y2k, the fast fashion industry is churning out designs for material girls every 4 minutes
Why do boba-sipping teens in London’s Chinatown look like they stepped out of a year-2-thousand (y2k) magazine?
These Generation Zers, born between 1997 and 2015, are walking examples of collective cultural nostalgia.
Every 20 years, trends like to throw it back to two decades ago, especially when our contemporary reality…loses its charm.
It’s not just fashion: there’s a reason why the era-jumping WandaVision is so popular (see Vishawn, who uncannily resembles The Rock in the 90s) and eerily familiar tunes by Dua Lipa (“Future Nostalgia”) and The Weekend (“Blinding Lights”) top the charts.
The #FreeBritney movement is burgeoning because it harks back to an era where you Did It Again with a Toxic Womaniser who Holds you Against the Music.
Y2k’s resurgence was a long time coming: Leigh Alexander, who writes voraciously about technology, culture and narrative, called it in 2016.
This nostalgia for an era we’re too young to remember “might have to do with a fascination with a time when internet culture was optimistic and exciting," Leigh says.
"...as opposed to the invasive, attention deficit-inducing climate of dread and unreality”—anyone else feel like we’re living in a simulation?—“we constantly experience now."
Gen Z’s 2000s nostalgia is also that much easier to fulfil en masse. Leigh explains: “It’s just cheapest to produce all these clothes with screen prints of random text in different languages and random dragon patterns on it, crap made of colorful see through plastic etc...
"like a lot of what people wore at the turn of the millennium.”
It’s precisely why our beloved #y2kaesthetic is killing the planet.
Not everyone can afford vintage Mugler or Save the Queen just for the ‘gram, which is governed by the tacit rule that yOu CaN oNLy wEaR sOmeTHiNg oNCe.
Ever opportunistic fast fashion brands are the beneficiaries. Some can pirate designs so quickly that they release over 900 new products weekly.
“But Gen Z killed fast fashion! And Covid’s reset consumer culture!” Indeed, we’ve been consuming less because there’s nowhere to go—emphasis on “have been”. This pandemic, and our slump in retail therapy, is temporary.
If anything, H&M, Zara and Boohoo have oriented their microseasons to loungewear, and gone as far as dedicating collections to June 21st.
Though the former is also true. “Young shoppers are adopting secondhand fashion faster than any other age group,” thredUP reported last July.
The secondhand market is “projected to grow to almost twice the size of fast fashion by 2029”.
Since the pandemic made thrifting and charity-shop crawls impossible, secondhand shopping apps have flourished.
In May 2020, Depop saw a 90% increase in traffic in one month.
"SO WHAT'S THE DEAL?"
Look at this verified account that’s sold over 10,000 products, all manufactured by third parties in China.
It has 5,000 5-star reviews and almost 40,000 followers.
In this screenshot, every top is around £14.
Courtesy of reverse image search. (Background: Marcello Gamez)
It’s not the only shop practicing arbitrage: buying an asset in one market to sell it in another and profit off the price discrepancy.
It happens offline, too. Some neon-lit shops in Brighton, romanticised on TikTok, resell “y2k staples” bulk-bought online.
Even more insidious is “dropshipping”: ordering Shein and AliExpress dupes on behalf of buyers, who receive items from a third party.
They think they’re paying “independent businesses” on Vinted or ASOS Marketplace, which ironically target an eco-conscious, climate-anxious demographic.
One year on and we’re pleased to see our work still getting media, scholarly and citizen attention - but what’s really changed in a year? 🤔#sustainablefashion #fastfashion @kirsiniinimaki @trissanen https://t.co/91wxOVlgjJ
— PATSY PERRY (@drpatsyperry) April 8, 2021
Environmental damage ensues in multiple ways. Fast fashion is very synthetic, says Dr Patsy Perry, who co-wrote “The environmental price of fast fashion”.
The garms in the Depop grid earlier are all made of non-biodegradable polyester. Its production “emits about 706 million tons of greenhouse gases a year”.
Then there’s the journey of a garment.
When Shein ships from Guangzhou to London, let’s say by air, that’s 2.78 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
If you return it—skipping the middlemen involved (e.g. Royal Mail)—the whole process is (at the very least) five tonnes of CO2e...
...or, 360 train trips between Amsterdam and Paris.
Not to mention all the defective, unwanted stock that goes up in flames.
...isn’t the solution.
There will always be a demand for cheap necessities, and blaming “the poor” when it’s the middle class and wealthy that profit from exploiting Bangladeshi workers (some of whom rely on these jobs for income) is deplorable.
The unfortunate truth is that fast fashion is inclusive: its fabrics don’t trigger sensory overload for autistic people, and sizing is expansive (take ASOS Petite, Tall, Hourglass, Curve, Plus Size, Maternity and Fuller Bust as an example).
It’s down to sustainable businesses to cater to these needs, but also “simple legislation”, says Dr. Perry. She predicts the rise of digital fashion: virtual outfits you can own, like NFTs. (Curious? Hit play.)
Music: "Eleonor's will" by frankum
Music: "Eleonor's will" by frankum
It wears the hues of neo-y2k: “a hyperreality imagined with fancy technology and broadcast onto social media,” Leigh says.
“We retreat into this cocoon-like space poptimism at times when we cannot imagine the future. In y2k times it was a refuge from our fear of technology and the imminent decline of capitalism.”
Today, it’s the fear of a climate crisis that could kill millions of people by 2030—accelerated, ironically, by our nostalgia for simpler times.
Social image comprises of photos by RomitaGirl67, staboslaw, Bicanski, marcen27, Janine and PublicDomainPictures.
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