Costume or Fashion? We Don't Know!

The endless list of Gen Z trends that can't stop, wont stop!

We recently teamed up with the gorgeous gentlemen at Fixing Famous People Chris DeRosa and Dominick Pupa to unpack (and fix) Gen Z trends. Normally, Chris and Dom tackle a celebrity in need of a little help — but they came to us confused about what in the trend was happening in the youthful fashion world.

Chris DeRosa is genuinely worried that everything is cosplay with trends like mob wife aesthetic, and everyone wearing pink to the Barbie movie. Is everything a costume now? So, we at How to Be Less Old got to work!

When we refer to Gen Z trends we are talking about the generation that are currently ages 27-11, (and don’t even get us started on the fashion tips from the youngest generation Gen Alpha!)

When we got together to prepare for the podcast, we decided to see how many trends we could find. Turns out that is an ABSURD practice, because it is ENDLESS. Gen Z is taking fashion and slapping names on it all over town.

Some are trends that we know (and maybe even love) that have been given new names, like hipster now being known as “indie sleaze.” But some are just plain old made up. Because as we dove into these trends, it quickly became crystal clear that everything is a “thing.”

For instance, (and we made this up) if you normally wear a hoodie to the movie theater because you get cold — this could suddenly be known as “moviecore.” You take it to TikTok, slap it up there with a hashtag and wait for other posts of #moviecore to follow. To be fair, it feels that arbitrary to us olds, but we will leave space for the learning that it could be more curated and nuanced. As Deanna says, these trends require us to practice radical acceptance.

As we started going through the list of trends (below) Dom made an earth-shattering observation.