By Ella Roldan
Photo courtesy of fashionbook.com
Low-rise jeans, polka-dot patterns, cami tops- they’ve all had a booming resurgence within the last year, with these items being seen nearly every day in the halls of Golden High School. Polka dots have made their entrance back into stores. With old trends being the new “cool” style, does that also bring unwanted beauty standards of the past? With early 90s fashion trends being the primary recycled trend, it begs the question of how this started, and why this particular era was chosen over any other decade.
According to fashionbook.com, polka dots have been recycled throughout each decade for well over a century due to their contrast in colors. Being dated back to the 1860s in France and have had more notable comebacks in the 50s with looks from Marilyn Monroe, and now Kylie Jenner rocking the pattern as well. Its fun yet classy aesthetic polka dots bring in any occasion.
Thinking back to 2020 when the body positivity movement began, this created the idea that everybody should be supported and seen in the media without ridicule. People all over social media have seen the wave of loving oneself and others, which in many ways helps people view themselves in a positive light, while also having an open mind to those with a different body type from your own. In a way, it promoted the idea that you don’t need to change your appearance for the validation of others, a way for more people to have a more positive mindset, especially in a time of great distress. But as the
movement began to change over the years, the sentiment changed as well. With the idea being to prioritize health and wellness, famous influencers and celebrities promoting Ozempic and GLP-1, the movement took a step backward. Bringing back other trends is a sign of these things and how even though society may progress in some ways, it may regress in others.
Social media can have an impact on what people deem important, as well as normal. AI and editing tools can take what seems to be realistic images of a person to something entirely fake, yet it’s intended to trick the viewer into believing it’s something real and amenable. This can be dangerous for a multitude of reasons, but specifically it can further drive the idea of unrealistic beauty standards.
Fashion, in particular, has also begun to bring that nostalgic feeling with the baggage of toxic mindsets to true beauty. Beauty culture can very easily be persuaded into believing that any solution to a problem can be fixed with a product. It’s been seen time and time again for ways to lose weight, get rid of something, hide another; any new way to create and then fix a problem will be done, and these extreme products can make people begin to question whether or not these appearance issues are even problems at all, like a math equation in need of being solved. Though it may seem like this is a new extreme of thinness within the last year, trends are constantly being recycled and can circle back to former beauty standards. Polka dots show that even though the pattern itself is something simplistic and playful, it can actually carry baggage that holds so much more than meets the eye.
Leave a Reply