Gen Z & Millennials reviving "old money" aesthetic; with a rise in popularity of preppy leaning hobbies and fashion.

Whatever

Eh - my gen-z son is a bit of a dandy and he and his friends are into this stuff. What differentiates it from the preppy ‘80s is that they’re all poor and cobble together the aesthetic from thrift stores and Etsy because they’re not into labels or contributing to the corporate machine. (I’m gen-x, and was also a pretentious English major who LOVED Brideshead Revisited, btw, so i get it!)

In a age of pandemics, imminent climate disaster, and economic uncertainty, with boomers still clinging to power, i can see why they latch on to the “old money” and “dark academia” styles, as well as “cottagecore”. 🤷🏻

Sounds rully nifty, OP! Top drawer!

I cahn't TELL you how pleased I am to see this thread! R1 is NOCD riffraff, obvs!

You can dress it up in whatever fuckery suits you, it still means thirsty arriviste.

I'm Gen X and grew up white trash and then (thanks to a stepdad) nouveau riche and I love this aesthetic. I buy a lot of older, quality furnishings and clothes.

I don't know how people live in a home that looks like an IKEA/middle-class furniture store showroom.

like this?

Everything that is expensive these days doesn't actually have much quality. Most people who actually have money are participating in activities or buying products that are expensive, but are lame or tacky. They are contributing to a wasteful materialistic society. This old money trend is a reaction to this. We are looking to the past to find long lasting value, as well as taste or wisdom in design.

If you're still stuck trying to understand, the biggest stars for young people today are the D'amelio sisters and Addison Rae.

This style never went away. Plus a lot of older clothing was higher quality and built to last. I don't think the teens and young adults doing this are trying to revive a trend, it's just a practical style and looks rather timeless too. I'm almost 30, grew up in a Baptist home, working class and my mom dressed me in sweaters, button-ups and dress pants. "Sunday best" as it's called. I grew up with a lot of hand-me downs and donations, a lot of that stuff is good quality as made with more care. I like the minimalist style and simplicity of it. The 80s and 90s did have revivals of this look but more targeted to upper white middle-class teens and priced up.

What I don't like is how everything is so performative and people treat their lives like a popularity contest. It's concerning because as a teenager, yes, you are conscious of what your peers think but that usually was restricted to school. Now it's bled into every faction of society because of the social media obsession. Nobody can just breathe and live their lives, doing whatever they please. It's dystopian in a sense, how people are now manufacturing themselves and treating themselves like walking brands. It takes away a lot of creativity and freedom in a sense.

If agglomerator of clickbait garbage non-writing, Business Insider, says so, IT MUST BE TRUE.

Is business insider really the place to go for reliable info on either fashion or trends in teens / young adults?

most of the boys at my STEM university have no style whatsoever, and its very relaxing. If they happened to be handsome or body beautiful or are charming, all the better. I think at least 50% of gen z are 100% norm core.

Nowadays, it seems being simple, "normal", no flashy fashion nor millions of tattoos and a generally laid-back and drama-free attitude is a sign of rebellion.

"Business Insider" is an aggregator with little to NO editorial staff. It is fine with anonymous sources, native advertising, and customer control of content. It is garbage. It exists to collect hits. But many DL are information illiterates.

GO into H&M and see what they sell. 90% of clothes for young men are aggressively bland normcore. Zara has more fashiony looks. Most young people don't have money. Just like when I was young 40 years ago. I was like the boy in the video - putting my interesting looks together in thrifts. Even middle class kids grow up in families strapped for cash.

I teach ethical supply chain and 50% of college students are aware of the huge issues with fast, cheap fashion. Which is what they can afford. So it's a conundrum.

There are a lot of ethical fashion lines, online and niche shops, and just funky fashion forward lines, but its so pricey. 200-300 dollar jeans, 100 dollar t-shirts. 800 dollar peacoats and bombers. And the difference between the 800 dollar peacoat and the 50 dollar Zara one is minimal.

Zara and H&M try ethical lines but they don't sell very well or in great quantity. Or they may be deliberate loss leaders - just done to greenwash the company.

This has always been my go to aesthetic.

"This style never went away. Plus a lot of older clothing was higher quality and built to last."

I have a Lacoste golf sweater from the mid Eighties that I still wear around the house. Comfiest thing ever, so why throw it away?

Look for Edwardian collars to make a comeback.

So basically they’re like Andy from Pretty in Pink?

maybe they can bring back cotton jockstaps with rubber in the stretchy parts. kind of stretched out.

Wishful thinking by Business Insider (of course it had to be them).

This is a subcultural thing that's been for decades. Most Gen Z do not dress like this, but more WASPy do, as always. Same with Millennials moving further from the city and so doing more boating etc life.

If this means the end of Mid-Century “chic” then I’m all for it.

Exactly, r2.

[quote] These scenes became inspiration for both fashion and decor: riding boots, Gucci crossbody bags, floral wallpaper, and lots of vintage.

All of these styles as quoted from the article heavily promoted in 2005-2010.

It’s reappearance is fashion industry offering an alternative to the past 10 years of athleisure and normcore and to encourage young people to buy more shit after lockdown. Much like the the laughable NYT Style Section publishing an article on the resurgence of the monocle every 20 years, it’s all hot air.

Fo once, I agree with them. We’ve almost 25 years of the hoodies-and-trainers look.

There is nothing "old money" about Gucci bags, Italian villages, or whatever the hell Leighton Meester is wearing in that picture. In fact, a television actress named Leighton who was born in a Texas prison is about as far from "old money" as one can get.

Same as Gen-X, where national trends were coming from broke people sourcing things from thrift stores. Not groundbreaking, but the previous trend was based on blue collar people, rather than the elite.

R26 Also all the coats and layered clothing that Nirvana and the other early 90s grunge bands wore was because of the colder climate of the Pacific Northwest. It does seem like a lot of fashion trends did arise from the working class like blue jeans, white tees and cowboy boots. And some fashion magazine or celebrity "discovers" it and it become a national trend. Same thing today.

R25 LOL true just marketing. I don't think most of the cast from GG wasn't even from NY and even Blake Lively who has a WASPy name and phenotype is more Southern California than NY.

I'm just glad that not having tattoos is more fashionable these days. I bet these kids who were grossed out by Nana's wrinkled tramp stamp and grandpa's bleeding heart of Jesus and tribal stripes decided early not to stain their skin. My 26 yo niece got a parrot tattoo on her arm which now looks like a subdermal hematoma. Revolting.

A kid in the neighborhood dresses like Oscar Wilde and it's delightful to see him on the regular. Actually I admire anyone with a sense of style.

[quote]I’m Gen X… and I love this aesthetic. I buy a lot of older, quality furnishings and clothes.

[quote]This style never went away. Plus a lot of older clothing was higher quality and built to last. I don't think the teens and young adults doing this are trying to revive a trend, it's just a practical style and looks rather timeless too.

I’m also Gen-X, R6, we couldn’t have predicted the decrease in quality but I’m glad I held on to clothes from my college years and furnishings my parents discarded.

[quote]Everything that is expensive these days doesn't actually have much quality. Most people who actually have money are participating in activities or buying products that are expensive, but are lame or tacky. They are contributing to a wasteful materialistic society.

Interesting you should say this, and this is only slightly on topic, but with all of the tornadoes we’ve had over the last two months I’ve noticed a great deal of the homes destroyed are large, overpriced McMansions & townhouses made with cheap materials with cheap labor.

[quote]Zara and H&M try ethical lines but they don't sell very well or in great quantity. Or they may be deliberate loss leaders - just done to greenwash the company.

It’s performative, R15.

Laugh you will but I use an app called Good On You to see how sustainable clothes and shoes are, it's not very comprehensive but it's helpful. That said, they give H&M more credit than they deserve.

Little is more Datalounge than this thread.

Is it back to work on Wall Street? Will they bring back seersucker and white bucks for the summer months only?

I'd love to see young men back in suits with the proper inseams - sleeves, vent, and trousers. A light trouser break on shoes. It was difficult to get right. Are they up for the challenge?

R26 Right. I remember going to thrift stores, vintage clothing shops, etc for my 1980s Punk fashions. Putting shit together!!! I was surprised and disappointed years later when Hot Topic opened in the Mall. Talk about lazy and tragic.

"I tried the Dark Academia aesthetic for a week":

Wait, didn’t the media tell us for years that Gen Z doesn’t care about status but wants authenticity and sustainability?

Fuck them we did it first

R2 - yes, this is more what I'm experiencing too with regard to Gen Z and late Millennials. They don't want the status/classist associations, just the style components. The kids are more than all right.

At the college campus near me the uniform for the young women is yoga pants, oversized tops and sneakers. The uniform for the young men is sweat pants, hoodies and sneakers. Very little style on anyone, though the VPL on the men is nice.

R38 - There seems to be an epidemic of workout clothes as the daily uniform whether it's going shopping, visiting museums, eating at restaurants. Ugly neon athletic shoes too. And flip flops, still, when it's in the mid-50s outside. (At least in SF, that's what I've seen.)

That headband girl's outfit may be old money but it's mostly whore, as in dizzy drunken debutante flunks of Pine Manor college, enrolls in Katie Gibbs secretarial school and gets knocked up by stockbroker in topsiders, no socks.

Look at any house in England for sale for over £400K or £500K (which in an un-soughtafter areas will buy a little 2 up, 2 down house): all the interiors attempt the subtlest of variations on a Posh & Becks theme with giant portraits of the owners (often in gloss black Baroque frames), some version of a pair of thrones, and expanse of marble floors, white walls, and a "kitchen-diner" with a sliding wall of glass onto a shitty little square of gravel, a "sun catcher" with a stainless steel round fire pit. Same oval bathtubs, same sinks (kitchen and bath), same ill-placed skylights punched through the roof, same cheesy fire burner, same color scheme, same shit art on the walls, same accent cushions

Same in the U.S. Same in many rich countries where the rich have spent the past two decades aspiring to be the adoring class, to have houses that appear to be owned by used car dealers, food franchise owners, or highly leveraged owners of a local chain of hair salons. These are the taste makers.

On TV it's dumbed down versions of the same. Is there an American kitchen left that doesn't look like the Property Brothers were there?

For all the rest of the abominable shit in the world, I don't think the impetus for this is political or reminding people of their order in a class structure, I think it's simply an escape from bland land of Ikea Luxe.

R33 we are kindred. I remember going to vintage clothing shops, thrift stores, etc. When I saw Hot Topic in the mall I was depressed.

Basically it can be summed up as: "it photographs well for Instagram/TikTok".

Are they actually ENJOYING croquet, sailing and summering in Maine? Who cares! It looks good on film.

And why does it bother you, fat OP? You had to come rolling here to start this vapid thread.

I like the trend towards thrift and second hand stores. I still have some items from the 80s and 90s. Some are too small for me, but some still fit. The quality was so much better. Some have the "Made in USA" tag on them, before China started taking over in manufacturing everything. I always liked the preppy style.. but not like I belong to a country club, but good basic pieces that will last for years. You can update with trendier touches. The trick is....don't gain weight, so you can still fit in them..lol.

If you watch the street style videos of NYC or Paris on Youtube...a lot of vintage clothing is used. It's pretty interesting.

Posters like r44 are so easily triggered at everything. We get it, you're sensitive about being a Millennial.

When I look around, I only see people in drab, black streetwear and trainers.

Beautiful! This has never been done before! Say what you want about millennials, but at least they were a bit more creative than to dust off grandma’s chest of old clothes and lamps.