The 5 Worst Recent Fashion Trends

We look at the notable current fashions in an attempt to chronicle the fashion mistakes of today, for tomorrow’s discriminating fashionista historian!

5. The Overtly Skinny Pair of Jeans

This trend popped up alongside the growing popularity of hipster and emo music in the years following the millennium, exemplified by rock acts like Fall Out Boy (whose indie credentials have withered away, just like a pair of testicles  would in these jeans). Although the jeans do draw the eyes to the bulk of the shoulders and arms by their almost ethereal dimensions, once the eye is drawn to the legs, the wearer might as well be an 8 year old Ethiopian refugee from the waist down.

4. Shutter Shades

Yes, we know… Kanye really seems to like them. The shutter shade is experiencing a comeback after rap phenom Kanye West donned them for videos and publicity cameos, resulting in millions of impressionable and fashion-conscious youngsters scouring the internet and local marketplaces for a pair. Most are cheaply made, and serve no real purpose except for making one’s face look like a house with shuttered windows, which is not helped by the fact that America’s weight problem actually adds house-like width and realism.

3. Uggs

The meteoric rise of the rat-fur boots know for its cutesy name as a fashion accessory must have been confusing for the aviators of WW1 and WW2 who wore similar sheepskin boots to keep their lower appendages warm at high altitudes. The sheepskin or synthetic wool lined boots are extremely popular with young women, are usually coupled with miniskirts, leggings, or jeans. Although the boots found steadfast adherents who proclaim the comfort of the ugg boots, they leave the wearer looking with a wayward Eskimo, or rather, as they are colloquially called, “eski-hos.”

2. Oversized Sunglasses

Oversized sunglasses, oh you enslaver of obnoxious valley girl-types! You will inspire snickering a few short years from now. Oversized sunglasses have been popularized in many TV shows, from the Hills on MTV to many other shows (which mostly revolve around filthy rich teenage girls and their enviable opportunities, despite their inability to spell, “opportunity.”) These shades serve no other purpose than leaving saucer shaped tan lines on one’s face, and making the wearer look like a Martian… a look that’s currently (as Lauren Conrad from the Hills would put it) hot.

1. Crocs

The decade after the millennium will always be marked by great tragedies: 9/11, the ill-fated invasion of Iraq, the devastating Tsunami of 2004 that snuffed out 225,000 lives in a matter of hours, and finally, the widespread acceptance of Crocs. These ugly little plastic contraptions may be comfortable, as their buyers insist, but they look childish and more appropriate on a messy 3 year old rather than a 23 year old collegian, due to their wide range of rather silly colors. Fortunately, the fad seems to be fading away quietly, as company shares are now trading at $1.90, a sharp decline over the $75 share price it once commanded.

Written by Parag Santhosh