Trends of the Decade

As 2009 comes to a close, "How Not To Look Fat" author, Danica Lo, lists the decade's top trends.
Anything missing from the list? Did you wear these with pride? Weigh in.

A decade of trends
Style of the ’00s: Good, bad, Ugg-ly
By DANICA LO

When is a trend a good trend? When it’s over. Love ’em or leave ’em behind, the ’00s will go down in history as the decade that gave us skinny pants and clunky footwear, scrappy-haired manorexics and bug-eyed stick-insect starlets, overpriced jeans and overdone velour. Here are our 10 biggest fashion trends of the decade — for better or for worse.

THE RACHEL ZOE LOOK

Rachel Zoe, a veteran Hollywood stylist (far left) who built a career on perfect taste, an eye for vintage and a knack for pulling glamorous gowns, finally found her fame by creating one of the decade’s most iconic looks. Zoe’s signature — dressing super-skinny starlets in boho get-ups, tons of accessories and huge shades — is seen here on Mary-Kate Olsen and Nicole Richie (pictured).

VELOUR TRACK SUITS

Juicy Couture started as a maternity jeans company in the late 1990s, but it wasn’t until the Juicy Couture tracksuit made its debut in 2001 that the company became a household name — and a retail success, earning more than $45 million that year. The low-slung, flared sweatpants and slim-fit hoodie have since become ubiquitous — gracing the backs of nearly every celeb in Tinseltown. The Juicies reached a fashion high in 2003, when Vogue flew designers Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor to Couture Week in Paris, and Dior designer John Galliano told them he wears his Juicy Couture sweatpants to work every day.

TRUCKER HATS

Popularized by celebs such as Pharrell Williams and Ashton Kutcher, trucker hats were the trademark of too-cool-for-conventional glitterati. The rapid rise and fall of Von Dutch — helmed from 2002 to 2004 by Christian Audigier, the same evil genius behind Ed Hardy! — left the trend dead and long forgotten by 2005.

UGGS:The Uggi-fication of America reached a high point this decade. The ubiquitous Ugg boots — sheep for your feet — are one of Australia's hottest exports, with up to four-month waiting lists every winter. No surprise, since they go with everything, from mini-dresses to jeans. Well, kind of.

EMO:This decade’s teen angst was best measured in guyliner. The mainstream emo scene (mainstreamo?), born from heartstring-tugging emotional rock surrounding bands such as Dashboard Confessional, Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz (above right) and Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, created a generation of smudgy-eyed, flat-ironed, skinny-jeaned, androgynous kids — a demographic that single-handedly keeps Hot Topic in business.

CROCS:Whatever you do, don’t call them plastic! Crocs were born in 2002 to a Colorado-based manufacturer that acquired the design from Canadian company Foam Creations. By 2007, Crocs were selling more than 30 million pairs a year worldwide — to everyone from outdoorsmen to soccer moms. The footwear trend may wind up a relic of this decade, though — the company reported a loss of $22.4 million at the end of its first quarter this year.

HIPSTERS:With the publication of “The Hipster Handbook” in 2003, hipsters became cemented in pop culture — a disaffected generation of upper-middle-class young adults sharing interests including but not limited to indie rock, thrift-stores, creative haircuts, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and Converse. They can be found in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, or at a Misshapes party.

$$$ SHOES:Thanks to Carrie Bradshaw’s impossibly expensive (Seriously? She’s a writer!) shoe collection, American women were seized by designer-shoe mania this decade. Manolos and Louboutins and Jimmy Choos, oh my. $1,000 footwear fetishes also contributed to the birth of high-low dressing — designer shoes with H&M? Yes, please.

LEGGINGS:The most flagrant fashion faux pas of the late '00s? Hands down, the leggings-as-pants phenomenon. While the '80s had shiny stirrups, the noughties relished spandex of the footless variety. Celebs such as Lindsay Lohan and the Olsen twins loved leggings so much, they even started selling their own. But while the garment’s stretchiness is democratic, its fit is not.

SEAN JOHN:By far, one of the greatest retail successes of the decade that doesn’t make us want to barf is Sean John — the label launched in the late '90s by music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs. An early entry in the celebrity clothing-line genre — with staying power, that is — the label hosted the first nationally televised New York Fashion Week show in February 2001 and has expanded to produce all categories of sportswear, accessories and fragrances.

LOW-RISERS:


Denim reached a new low this decade — in terms of rise, that is. Stars such as Paris Hilton and Christina Aguilera shamelessly dared to bare their hipbones and more, spurring a nationwide, um, crack epidemic. As waistbands got lower, G-strings got higher (as well as fancier and more bejeweled) — until 2006, when Paris and Britney Spears decided to dispense with underwear altogether.