Why out-out dressing now feels like the 2010s

When I was younger, I had a clear idea of what glamour looked like: Cara Delevingne in a Burberry campaign, wearing the shortest mini dress, a trench, a neon bag and ankle-breaking platforms. I dreamed that by the time I could legally enter a club, I’d be going out dressed like a 2010s model in London.

We saw a glimmer of glamour after the pandemic, when people were desperate to get out of the house. But by the time adulthood arrived and the clubs reopened for a generation who lived the 2010s magic through a screen, suddenly all anyone could talk about were minimal wardrobe staples and quiet luxury. Fun was nowhere to be found in neutral knits and investment basics. Fantasy gave way to practicality, and I couldn’t help but feel like something had been lost in the trade.

A few months back, however, fashion’s cyclical nature asserted itself. At 23, I live with three girls and lately, the packages that arrived at our flat contain some thrilling finds – a pair of second hand Jeffrey Campbells, a Riccardo Tisci-era Givenchy T‑shirt, Christophe Decarnin Balmain trousers. And the pièce de résistance? A Hervé Léger bandage dress.

At first all of this was a bit of a joke. But the joke started looking really good. We were craving fun, something loud, shiny, unserious. I gave in. We all did.

The return of the bandage dress is part of a wider revival of early 2010s fashion, a time when getting dressed meant getting dolled up. Think sky-high platforms, micro mini skirts, obnoxious statement necklaces, flashy paparazzi pictures of a Dash era Kim Kardashian, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton falling out of a club with perfectly smudged eyeliner. The 2010s weren’t necessarily tasteful, but they were committed. Thank God, it seems like they’re back.

Addison Rae has long been an endorser of this divisive and often referenced era. Exiting a Hollywood restaurant with her bestie Lexee Smith wearing pastel tights and faux fur coats or an ​“I Fucking Love Lady Gaga” top, pumps and mini shorts, there’s something a little off-kilter and noughties pop diva about these looks.

“I feel like Addison Rae and her crew have their thumb on 2010s style,” says Liana Satenstein, editor and founder of NeverWorns, an Instagram-led fashion series. ​“She was wearing that eggplant American Apparel hoodie in Headphones On…” A relic of the Tumblr era, its reappearance signals a wider 2010s revival. With stylist Dara Allen behind the scenes, Rae’s embrace of the aesthetic feels timely and intentional: less TikTok ingénue, more plugged-in pop star.

Addison’s nods to the 2010s are part of a larger echo, from Alaïa’s decades-old bandaged takes to House of CB’s riffs on the original Hervé silhouette: my FYP is inundated with bandage dresses. What about receipts? Depop has them. According to the resale platform, searches for Hervé Léger are up 3,502 per cent last month. And what’s a rib-crushing silhouette without vertiginous heels? Searches for those have soared to 127 per cent, too. Liana, who wrote a piece about the famous dress in 2022, isn’t the least bit surprised about the return of the form-fitting number. ​“The Hervé Léger is a dress that is classic when it comes to construction. They really did engineer the hell out of those bandages to cinch and suck,” she says. ​“It makes sense that it would resurface. I think people always want to go out, and this is just a failsafe piece to do that.”

Meanwhile, City Girl JT was spotted wearing 2010 Fendi by Karl Lagerfeld platforms earlier this year, as well as the 2009 Margiela glass pumps on the City Cinderella album cover. Elsewhere, Doechii performed at Dsquared2’s AW25 show in March in their legendary Ice Skate shoes. Yuri’s Market, an online archive shop beloved by celebs, has been busy supplying everyone from Kendall Jenner to Keke Palmer with Undercover Cherry Knuckleduster clutch bags, Gucci by Tom Ford stacked heels and D&G fringed capris.

The archives are certainly being pillaged. ​“During this fallow period we’re seeing in fashion, as we wait for everyone to settle in and take their new positions at houses, it seems like everyone loves an archive reference,” says editor and creative consultant Olivia Singer.

A recent eBay purchase of a strapless Hervé Ledger number to replace a lost Miu Miu dress has called to mind some nostalgic memories for her. ​“I’ve always loved a bandage dress because, to put it simply, I have always loved things that snatch you,” she explains. ​“I was a teenager during the 2010s, during their pop culture heyday, and the heyday of the high street, so I had a really good Topshop one. I guess it makes me think of WAGs; like that high-glam, 2010s, going out-out aesthetic. It feels camp, in a fab way.”

Even though I wasn’t old enough to live it properly, I absorbed the 2010s. Paparazzi pics, TV, posters in my bedroom,and heavily filtered early Instagram posts. It’s no surprise then that, when I think of fun, that’s exactly where my mind goes. ​“As internet microtrends [have] become tiresome, I can imagine a young person thinking, actually, I just want to be hot,” says the Washington Post’s Shane O’Neill. Re-enter the bandage dress, whose message is fairly straightforward: ​“This is the way my body looks. Do you like it? We’re in a moment that is once again venerating women with long hair who are thin, busty, cheerful and accommodating.”

And here’s the catch: The ultra-thin ideal of beauty is back, quietly erasing a decade of body positivity. Runways are visibly thinner, celebrities once known for hourglass silhouettes are dissolving their fillers, and the popularity of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic has reframed thinness as both aspirational and attainable. The 2010s may be fun to revisit style-wise, but they also come with a rigid, often harmful standard of beauty. And while Gen Z might be reviving the era’s fashion with a wink, it’s a reminder that the industry’s obsession with control hasn’t gone anywhere, it’s just dressed up in bandages again.