Even when staying home was a choice and not a public health requirement, many of us still bopped around in activewear all day. But now that life once again allows for going out, aka occasions to excavate the other 98% of our closets, how do we channel our long-suppressed Big 'Fit Energy without giving up the comfort of four-way stretch?
For more than a year, the going-out top has been, for the majority of us, a nostalgia trigger or an existential punchline. We didn’t go out — in some instances, not even for groceries. Our Reformation camisoles and bodysuits from Aritzia gathered dust alongside our occasion dresses and work heels. Today, though, more than 47% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated. We can go out, to the grocery store and the bar and the club. And because of that, the going-out top is back — with a vengeance. Demure camisoles and skin-concealing bodysuits are so 2019. Instead, the A-listers of the fashion brigade are popping up in our feeds wearing a going-out top style that’s slinkier, sexier, and more revealing than anything those of us who might still be getting regular use of our COVID wardrobe staples could have dreamed of. Meet the pin top.
Though it was Emily Ratajkowski in her blue Cult Gaia pin top — which, as the name suggests, is a top held together by nothing but a pin — who really put this new going-out staple on the map, it was actually fellow model Hailey Bieber who’s responsible for introducing the style. Vogue stylist Gabriella Karefa-Johnson dressed Bieber in a black cardigan secured only by a tiny gold button and a large gold paper clip at the breastbone for a recent beach fashion shoot in the magazine. The photo of Bieber in her barely-hanging-on knit didn’t end up making the final cut for the resulting story, and therefore, didn’t garner the kind of attention that a top of that nature deserved. Leave it to EmRata to remedy that.
The model-actress, who’s been known to don ab-baring clothing whenever possible, was photographed in June wearing a periwinkle blue halter top that, if not for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it U-shaped pin, would have been held together by nothing other than pure will. Called the Diem top, her $278 Cult Gaia halter immediately sold out. But the Los Angeles-based brand, an Instagram favorite, is readying itself for a restock in off-white and black, both of which are now available for pre-order.
Vogue referred to Ratajkowski’s barely there top as a “new extreme,” while Page Six Style called it a “wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen.” And yet, in the three weeks since she debuted the look, similar versions by I.AM.GIA and Jacquemus have flooded runways, social feeds, and street style pages.
Bella Hadid was spotted in a pin top of her own at Jacquemus’ La Montagne show in July. The cropped black sweater, closed in the middle of her chest with a small silver tube fastening, was by the designer in question, and styled with slouchy black-and-gray jeans and Y2K-inspired blue-tinted sunglasses. During the show, her same knit made its runway debut, as did long and short versions in fuschia, saffron red (modeled on Kendall Jenner), and tangerine orange.
This past Wednesday, Bieber took to the trend again, wearing a fuzzy, caramel-colored iteration with plaid trousers to an appointment at her dermatologist’s office, of all places. That same day, Spanish fashion influencer MarÃa Bernad posted photos of herself on Instagram wearing a red pin top from I.AM.GIA (also seen last month on Kaia Gerber at a friend’s star-studded birthday party ) with low-rise yoga pants and a cowboy hat. Suffice to say, pin tops are all over the place.
This style is only one of many fashion trends dominating post-lockdown that are more revealing than those of pre-COVID times. Dresses are shorter and more sheer, pants are lower-rise and more fitted, and swimsuits, well, they hardly exist at all. We’re showing everything off, with scarcely a care in the world. So, bring your boob tape and mentally prepare for wardrobe malfunctions. Let the pin begin.
Ahead, shop this season’s fastest-growing going-out top trend (if you dare).
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The rumors are true: Y2K trends — including low-rise jeans, whale tails, and corsets — are back, both on the runways and on social media. They might have terrorized millennials who lived through them (and survived to tell), but they’re sparking excitement among Gen Z who are looking at decades past for fashion inspiration.
From the vantage point of the 2020s, the turn of the millennium — once deemed an era of pop culture disruption and the Internet boom — is a chapter now old enough to be considered vintage. According to Dawnn Karen, a leading fashion psychologist and the author of Dress Your Best Life: How to Use Fashion Psychology to Take Your Look — and Your Life — to the Next Level, these fashion moments point to a desire to exit our current circumstances. Our once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, climate change, economic crises, and extraordinary political and sociological disruptions are all conspiring to nostalgia for what appear to be the greener pastures of earlier times.
“Right now, we are trying to reach back to any decade,” says Karen. “Considering what we’ve gone through globally and simultaneously, we are looking for a healthy form of escapism.”
The Y2K adulation started gaining real momentum on social media last year, when quarantine caused Gen Z to resort to TikTok, where vintage fashion and pop culture thrive. “It’s manifested with Gen-Z discovering Y2K trends on TikTok and their nostalgia for both the youth culture and youth fashion from the early 2000s,” says Marian Park, a youth strategist at WGSN, the global trend forecasting agency, adding that the forecasters were able to spot the return of the early 2000s aesthetic about five years ago.
The Hollywood party scene of the early 2000s provided a sugarcoated backdrop for plenty of fashion moments that have become synonymous with a recent chapter of history. Paris Hilton’s velour Juicy Couture tracksuits and Kim Kardashian’s Louis Vuitton Miroir tote bags are ingrained in the collective memory of this time. Last year, Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS capitalized on that memory by bringing back their tracksuit-and-bag combo with the release of its velour line in October. The numbers prove that Kardashian and Hilton are not alone in their nostalgia: According to Lyst, a global fashion search platform, Juicy Couture searches are up 179% this year versus last year.
While SKIMS may be capitalizing on its founder Kardashian’s past to sell new products, many fashion fans are looking for the originals. Gen Z’s knack for thrifting, upcycling, and reselling has become an important factor to consider in the return of early 2000s styles. According to Tradesy, an online resale marketplace, searches for Y2K-related queries have increased over the past year, including low rise (50%), baby tee (2,000%), and cargo pants (28%). The site has also reaped the benefits of the vintage resale market with an increase in revenue from the Prada Nylon bag and the Fendi Baguette in the last four years, with a year over year growth in revenue of 30% and 16%, respectively.
“Gen Z’s appetite for savvy thrifting and upcycled fashion is also driving the rise of the 2000s look, as much of what is available on resell platforms and sought after in secondhand stores are from this era,” says Park.
Archival fashion, particularly concerning items that trace back to the turn of the millenium, is having its moment as well. Bella Hadid dusted off a vintage Jean Paul Gaultier couture gown from 2002 to attend the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, and Rihanna sported a vintage Dior slip dress from the house’s 2002 collection on the streets of where. On TikTok, archival fashion is going viral with users analyzing styles from the early 2000s with the hashtag #ArchivalFashion. There, fans chronicle designs from early John Galliano-designed Dior and dissect looks from series like Sex and the City and Gossip Girl, both of which are being rebooted by HBO Max.
“The 2000 aesthetic has gone from niche to big trend,” Bridget Mills-Powell, Content Director at Lyst, says of the recent explosion. She adds that searches on the platform related to Y2K have increased by 450% since last year, a phenomenon that she traces to the cascade of celebs donning archival fashion on the red carpet.
Back in the early 2000s, the Internet was still in its infancy. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram had yet to disrupt the culture (and our attention spans). Blogs and chat forums and ill-fated experiments like Friendster dominated online. In its infancy, the internet was still second to anything IRL, a bastion of all that was niche and experimental. It would be years before anyone would be inured to the harassment, body shaming, and overall nastiness that plagues online discourse today. Now, trolling is a fact of life and disinformation and extremism run rampant. There is a comfort to be found in running terms like “Kate Moss slip dress” and “Paris Hilton Bungalow 8” in our search engines.”
The Internet of today is also providing a second life to storylines that we once associated with the early 2000s. The battle over Britney Spears’s conservatorship and the return of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s relationship are two examples that have guided our collective conscience to reflect on the events that led us to where we are today. According to Park, this has led a new wave of fandom, from #Bennifer stans to the #FreeBritney movement, as Gen Z-ers are familiarizing themselves with the news of yesteryear, and dressing up like it.
While fashion may be consistently cyclical (it wasn’t that long ago that Lady Gaga brought back shoulder pads and ‘80s glamour), the early 2000s comeback is a clear manifestation of how the social and cultural forces of our world infiltrate our closets and psyche, forcing millennials and Gen Z to dive deep into the Y2K vault in the middle of a worldwide crisis.Yet, it’s key to remember the escapism nostalgia provides is just that: a fantasy.
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The resurgence of leggings as "real pants" has only been accelerated by the past year's shift towards comfort-first wardrobes. We no longer ask ourselves whether or not the body-con bottoms are a truly viable option to wear outside of the gym; with the right styling, the right attitude, and the right pair, the stretchy, clingy pant now gets a resounding yes. However, as summer rolls around, the same goes for the leggings' cropped counterparts: bike shorts.
Bike shorts caused quite the stir when they returned to the runway again a few years back, with fashion girls all over the world embracing the controversial trend. And, while we weren't quite sure of their longevity, after seeing our favorite designers from Heron Preston to Rachel Comey manufacturing pairs of their own, it became clear that bike shorts are here to stay. What's the trick to doing them right? Our advice: grab a pair with some length — it's more fashion-forward and makes navigating your shoe selection so much easier. Leggings and heeled sandals? Most likely no. Bike shorts and heeled sandals? Kind of great. Wear with an oversized blazer, a simple hoodie, or with a pretty white blouse, and you're good to go.
Ahead, shop our picks for every pair of bike shorts you'll need for summer — from high-rise to ribbed and pocket-clad.
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June was all about the savings. Supergoop!'s cult-favorite sunscreen made a rare appearance on the clearance racks and the Olympics of sales, Amazon Prime Day, carried the marked-down torch. The past 30+ days have been a deal-packed rollercoaster, making this edition of Refinery29 readers' most wanted products an even wilder ride than usual — as in, there are still deals in store.
After combing through all that juicy (and anonymous!) bestselling shopping data, we cooked up the ahead top-bought June spread. It's a menu marked with summer dress specials, hidden Nordstrom gems, and crowd-pleasing Father's Day gifts that are still worth your summer coin. Interested in a timely hot-weather score? There are sets of highly reviewed cooling sheets for that. How about the best breathable cotton underwear? Oh, you betcha. Click right on into a shopping list of the 29 things — some on sale, others full-price but still fantastic —that Refinery29 readers got really into this June.
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