Categories: Fashion

Chic or Child Please Stop? The Fashion Trends We Do & Don’t Need In 2021

If 2020 gave us anything it was free time. Free time to shop online, loath and love our lives, clean out our closets, read and roam online for hours on end, and so on. From all this “off-time” we should have been trying to better ourselves for ourselves. While I am aware that this starts from the inside what you decide to wear on the outside helps.

While scientists and white coat clad researchers were strutting into 2020 and 2021 busy exploring new vaccination possibilities, the fashion world has also been strutting into new (more fashionable) fields of exploration but instead of life-saving cures for the coronavirus, they have been exploring new outfit ideas, new cuts, new prints, new fabrics, new color pallets, and new fashion trends for 2021. 

This does not mean that all that is considered a “trend” should be worn, however. I think I speak for us all when I say that. There are some clothing options that are… questionable. This is not rare in fashion. Fashion choices and designs are brought on by questions after all. If no one had ever asked, “Would this match that?” or if pants really were just made for men then we would not be as fashionable as we are today. Yet, with all these options, trendsetters, and new trends it is also okay to ask the question if some of the new or recycled trends of 2021 are worth repeating. As always, I will save you from asking such questions by going ahead and telling you which fashion trends of 2021 we need to ban and which we need to bow to. 

Fashion Trends We DON’T Need in 2021

1. Gap sweatshirts

This trend all started thanks to Podcast aficionado, Youtube guru, and a fashion trendsetter who is somehow just as fashionable as she is funny. This impressive internet personality is no other than Emma Chamberlain.

Given the fact that I do not know this young lady and that I respect her hustle, I would never say anything negative about her… BUT I will say something negative about all those that rushed out to their local Gap stores or rummaged through the bins at their towns nearby Goodwill in order to find a sweatshirt that they wore in middle school. This 2021 trend is one that consists of a normal sweatshirt that has huge block letters that laced together spell out the word “GAP” across the chest. 

It’s not that the sweatshirt is heinous. It’s not even the price. It’s the fact that this trend is so wildly ordinary and repetitive. The most exciting thing about this fashion choice is what color the person in the Gap sweatshirt chose and why. There is no way to not just be another person wearing a Gap sweatshirt when you decide to embark upon wearing this trend. Sure, you can style a turtleneck under it. You can make it a cropped sweatshirt, you can proudly wear the hood and you can even tuck it in but at the end of the day you are and you will remain until it comes off, the person in the Gap sweatshirt… just like every other person in the Gap sweatshirt. 

2. Knee high converse

I do not care if you feel the knee high converse match your bruting bangs nor do I care if you can recite every lyric to any Iron Maiden album there is. I don’t care if you think they would go well with your plaid pants or if you saw 12-year-olds wearing them to a stylist’s perfection on Tumblr or Myspace. There are not enough ways for me to tell you that knee high converse will never be it. If you don’t care, okay but the second I see a pair of unprovoked knee high converse coming my way I will untie those shoes from knee to toe, play “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter and sit there watching you have to spend thirty-minutes retying each of those knee high suckers. It will be just as painful for me as it is for you. Yet, it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make if it means that you will retire this trend once and for all.  

3. Purple puffer jackets

What you might think people are thinking when they see you posing in front of that mural in your purple puffer jacket: “Wow. She is so fashionable. I want that purple puffer jacket.”

What we are actually thinking: “You’re turning Violet, Violet” 

4. Wood beaded jewelry

This trend is not all bad but heed with caution. It’s easy to segway from fashionable earth-inspired trendsetter to eccentric-art-teacher-going-through-a-bad-divorce real quick.  

5. Sorbet color palette outfits

This is another trend that could go either way. I feel that breaking out the pastels as soon as Spring steps forward is a tired trend. However, it doesn’t have to be if you fashion the colors well. If you create a pastel outfit in a new refreshing way then this trend deserves to come back year after year. The goal is not to be the Easter Bunny but to make the Easter Bunny want to hop right on into your fashionable closet. 

Fashion Trends We DO Need in 2021

1. Matching sets

Hold on, let me catch my breath. I can talk for a minute straight on why I hope this trend never dies. It’s easy, cute, an automatic outfit, and eye-catching. Matching sets come in many styles from athletic to cute loungewear to a night out. You can throw on a pair of stylish shades or a surprising shoe and have yourself a whole new ensemble. Matching sets are also a good deal for your buck because you can mix and match the set with your other clothes to make an entirely new outfit if you get bored of wearing the pieces together. 

2. Face masks

It is 2021. We are not yet over this pandemic. Plus, masks can disguise you so nobody sees you wearing any of the trends that should be left behind in 2021. Need I say more? 

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3. Oversized vintage dad blazers

Many people, specifically girls, with broad shoulders feel they can’t pull off this look. I am here to tell you how false that is. Anyone can look good in an oversized vintage dad blazer. It sounds difficult but it’s not. This trending garment can upgrade any outfit from sloppy to structured with very little effort. Pair your oversized blazer with jeans and Adidas like Hailey Beiber or go with a more high-fashion chic blazered look like Rosie Huntington Whiteley, both give us major boss babe vibes that we all can appreciate in 2021. 

4. Cutout jeans

This look is… *chef’s kiss*. It’s a fashion risk worth trying for no other reason but it’s zero fu*c*s vibes. I am not going to act like I am built with a style microchip but I do like to insert one from time to time. And funnily enough, all of my friends are fashionable so I do know a little something about fashion-based purely off of friend association. I have ordered and am currently waiting for my new and trendy cutout jeans to arrive. A waiting game worth playing if I do say so myself. 

5. Trench coats

Like the oversized blazer, this trend is forgiving and a fashion fix to any outfit. You can wear this coat over anything for a more refined and purposeful fit. You can even wear it over nothing and yet somehow you will still be the most classy person on the block. Looking timeless is never out of style and neither are you in your taupe trench coat. 

If 2020 gave us anything it was free time. If 2021 has given us anything it is vaccinations and new post-pandemic fashion trends waiting to be styled and seen while others should be left in the past, like the corona-19 virus itself. I’d say 2021 is starting out to a fashionably fitting start, wouldn’t you?

Please let me know your stylish thoughts and opinions by leaving a comment below. 

Featured image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/595741856945891204/
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Leila Smith

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