Childhood Revisited: The Nostalgic Allure of Fashion Today

Written By: Kiera McMillan @kiera_mcmillanx

Bows, headbands, scrunchies, ballet flats. 

No, you haven’t stumbled upon the wish list of your eight year-old self. Instead, you’re in 2024, where fashion-lovers are turning to style to take us out of a turbulent present and into the comforting, carefree milieu of childhood. 

It’s nothing new to suggest that fashion exists as an outlet for many, a means of escape from the regulated rhythm of adulthood, a way to experiment and have fun. Perhaps maximalist dressing brings joy to your evenings after a long day of dulling it down in your corporate 9-5, or gorp-core gets you going despite an aversion to the outdoors. This playful approach to style is what unlocks the inner child in us all, and here lies the heart of what is intrinsically childlike about getting dressed. We wake up each morning, open our wardrobes and construct a version of ourselves to present to the world, as if playing dress-up. Although now, instead of shuffling around in your mum’s too-big high heels or stealing a coveted item from an older sibling so desperate to grow up, we want to turn back the clock.

Fashion can be understood as an indicator of time; synonymous with progress, modernity, an ever-changing measure for how quickly the zeitgeist evolves. But how can we consider fashion as a measure of time that also works in reverse? This duality is discussed by fashion writer and historian Elizabeth Wilson in her book Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity, where she suggests that fashion

“is in some sense inherently given to irony and paradox; a new fashion starts from rejection of the old and often an eager embracing of what was previously considered ugly; it therefore subtly undercuts its own assertion that the latest thing is somehow the final solution to the problem of how to look.

This paradox is explored by many designers whose work draws on the intimate quality that our clothing possess, both to our bodies and to our selves. As clothing has the ability to connect us with a time, a moment, a place that transcends materiality, the process of ‘making’ goes far beyond physical design and construction to include the sentimental attachments we assign to certain styles.

One designer who encapsulates this paradox is Simone Rocha, with her trademark brand of coquettish femininity. Known for presenting playful silhouettes of lace, ribbon and tulle juxtaposed against elements of utilitarian tailoring, the designer builds a bridge between womanhood and girlhood. Through this, the multi-dimensional nature of Rocha’s work grants a certain level of catharsis to the beholder; at once comforted by the styles of our inner child, we watch on proudly as they’re validated on the runway, granted the status of ‘high fashion’ in a culture that condemns all things ‘girly’. Her fall 2022 collection was equally transportive. Taking inspiration from the Irish folktale, ‘The Children of Lir’, the show once again oscillated between innocence and experience in the same way we do as adults. Caught between the appeal of child-like bliss and the reality of womanhood, Rocha’s clothing offers a satisfactory level of succor. 

In these strange and complicated times, as war rages alongside environmental and economic crisis, with the future looking bleak, it’s no surprise we’re taking comfort in the rose-tinted hues of the past. Disillusioned with the conventional markers of success (marriage, home-owning) that defined the milestones of our parent’s adulthood, today’s Gen Z are swapping the property ladder for the playground in pursuit of dopamine-filled nostalgia. As well as fashion, cultural trends are tapping into this desire for childish, carefree fun. Google searches for digital cameras have doubled since 2019, swapping out clean and curated Instagram grids for grainy point and shoots. Vogue’s key autumn trends for 2024 suggests that ski sweaters are a reflection of our “nostalgia for snow, which climate change has rendered increasingly rare in some parts of the world.” A report from trend forecasting specialists Stylus reveals that 56% of Gen Z yearn for the 2000s. This, more than an affinity for low-rise jeans, expresses a deeper nostalgia for a time when our ideas of growing up were still shrouded in the TV-allure of hedonistic fun, a life without rules and unrealistic expectations, as opposed to the reality of soaring rent prices and climate anxiety. 

The pandemic, too, w as a significant catalyst for this rise in “kidulting”, a phenomenon by which adults engage in lighthearted activities designed for children. As many of us returned to our childhood bedrooms, forced to slow down and reconnect with our roots, the desire for constant newness that capitalism breeds was replaced with a sense of nostalgia for simpler times. The elusive charms of a carefree childhood rediscovered during lockdown have become immortalised in the trends and objects of our present. Sonny Angels, despite launching in the early 2000s, is a brand that has seen immense popularity over the last couple of years. The line of miniature Japanese dolls have garnered an obsessive cult following of online it-girls, with each collectible signaling a certain level of stylish awareness. The cherub-like figures all wear different headgear, which is kept a mystery inside its packaging until after purchase. The much-anticipated moment of unboxing emulates the child-like euphoria of tearing open a gift on Christmas morning. This dopamine-filled feeling is replicated in other collectible toys popular among adults today. Jellycats, another socia media fueled fad, are a brand of stuffed toys replicating a range of foods, products and animals with a smiling face and legs. Hidden in these simple joys is a child-like enthusiasm for the small things, a quality that diminishes as we grow older and are taught to strive towards what is bigger and better. 

Today’s adult population, it is clear, long to reconnect with their inner child as they face the reality of an adulthood they do not resonate with. The rise of ‘Quit-tok’, where young workers film themselves quitting their jobs in protest of today’s grind culture, encapsulates this generation’s outright rejection of conventional adult life defined by a 9-5 structure. Choosing to get married later in life or not at all, 20-somethings today are ripping up the playbook of what it means to be an adult, one stuffed toy at a time. Whilst this can be seen as a dedication to ‘healing our inner child’ through commodified nostalgia, it is a true reflection of how late-stage capitalism has instilled a reliance in us all on consumerism as an escape from the daily grind of adulthood, where our emotions are controlled and changed by the things we own. This is the allure of prevailing fashion trends today, swaddling us in the comfort of the past, a life that we know and understand, in the face of an uncertain future.