Millennials may be the first generation to try to emulate their younger successors.

analysis

trends
Millennials may be the first generation to consciously try to emulate their younger successors. Why is that?

Social media is full of tips on how to copy the look of a 20-year-old when you’re in your mid-thirties. Two generations have never been so strangely close, or wanted to be so close, as the Millennials and Gen Z are now. An analysis.

There are two things that will tell you a trendy young person if you’re not one anymore: their middle parting and their socks sticking out of their shoes. Of course, as is the case with fashion, you have to revise it a bit: instead of center parting and Princess Leia dumplings, you can see them really boys, really trendy people too these days, hold on tight, mullets. However, Gen Z (born between around 1995 and 2010) prefer to call it – Anglicized – better mulletso it’s not so embarrassing. But in general, you can quite aptly infer a person’s age from the two points mentioned above.

Why? Because we Millennials (born between about 1980 and 1995) still prefer side parting. You may have never consciously thought about it, but if you think about your circle of acquaintances between 30 and 45, you will have to nod in surprise. No wonder: the side parting was probably the standard hairstyle for cool girls and women (and men!) for 15 years. At the very latest in the emo period, starting in 2008, nothing else really worked. And there was a reason: Most of us were sent out as kids in the ’90s with a hairdo like DJ Tanner’s from the original “Full House” series. That traumatizes! All we wanted was to banish that unspeakable fluffiness from our heads!

Millennials vs. Gen Z: A matter of socks

And the socks. We millennials have tormented ourselves with those annoying footlets and sneaker socks for years. In 90 percent of the cases things slipped into the shoe by the heels. But: visible socks just didn’t work. German tourists on the beaches of Mallorca, they show their sports socks in trekking sandals – but nobody with dignity and taste? We started having the sock problem around 2005, when the floor-length bell-bottoms that we shuffled through the millennium in were slowly being replaced by skinny jeans. Suddenly you saw the knuckles. And then, yes, ballerinas became fashionable. You can’t explain ballerinas to young people, but that’s how it was. And ballerinas with sports socks? No.

But why do we care at all? Us mature, relaxed adults who could continue combing their hair on their foreheads and showing their bare ankles, completely unperturbed? There are possibly two reasons. The first: Today we feel more strongly than ever before to stay young as long as possible. In terms of lifestyle as well as appearance. Mobile phone cameras everywhere, social media, eternally young celebrities … of course, people have always wanted to appear youthful. But expected it probably never was as much as it is now. This is especially true for women.

Staying young – compulsory or optional?

Botox and hyaluronic acid are available almost everywhere around the corner in the big cities, and such treatments are no longer just for stars and starlets. Hardly anyone just lets their first gray hair run free. Due to the easy availability of such cosmetic rejuvenation options, the irritated to reproachful question quickly arises: Why doesn’t someone use it?! Just aging naturally – that has perhaps never been as difficult as it is today.

And when it comes to fashion and trends, we don’t want to admit that we come from a different generation with different rules of taste. And so we scroll through Instagram, TikTok or anywhere else how to adapt to the style of young people. Would our parents have done that? You probably have to laugh now too. At most they complained that our pants were too low. They didn’t ask for styling tips…

Instructions for being casual

The funniest thing is that parts of the 30+ generation now obediently follow instructions, while the real Gen Z of course doesn’t care what any rules say. They wear comfortable socks because they don’t see why they shouldn’t. Dye their hair green because they think it’s cool. Wear crop tops even if they don’t have six pack abs. They just don’t care, they do what they want! huh And that brings us to the second possible reason why so many members of older generations want to be like Gen Z.

Are they maybe just better than us? More relaxed, smarter, more casual? They prefer to take care of the climate rather than cellulite, pay attention to fairness and acceptance without being asked, live diversity. Yes, you can look back at our school days with a somewhat uncertain look, when almost completely fat-free diets, bullying and body shaming were the order of the day. Jokes about foreigners, blondes and homosexuals were commonplace. Those who were different usually had a hard time. While we were shown in the magazines which stars had just shamefully gained five pounds (and on the beach despite it wore a bikini), young people are thinking wisely about how to support each other at the same time. Somehow Gen Z seems to be able to do a lot better. No wonder that we would like to have a bit of this feeling afterwards.

Forever young?

And so today you sometimes have to take a closer look to see if someone is 22 or 42. So if he follows the sock and crown rules. An unusual state of affairs that may not have existed before – and may not come back. Because in 20 years, will these strange young people of today really want to be like the young people then? Somehow I dare to doubt that.

And because you might be interested, here are the fashion maxims of Gen Y: