Scroll by means of any fashion-y Instagram account in 2026, and also you’ll possible discover it stuffed with photos from a bygone period. It began with the return of Y2K style staples (cue photos of Britney Spears in hipster denims and Jennifer Lopez in capris), however for some time now, noughties British popular culture has moved into body. IG accounts devoted to celebrating one of the best of British, like Brit Cult, Brit Pop Glory and Love of huns x, are taking us again with photos of fresh-faced icons like Robbie Williams, Victoria Beckham, the Gallaghers and Lily Allen, but it surely’s not simply on-line.
British tradition, from excessive to low, is having fun with a second—with the US tuning into UK Love Island (Lena Dunham was an early adopter) earlier this yr, in addition to London Falling, Patrick Redden Keefe’s story of a wealthy teenager’s dying while residing in a luxurious Thames-side condo, was fast to hitch the New York Instances best-seller record. Britpop’s second wave is right here, and after Oasis and Pulp crammed stadiums final yr, Elastica, the cool-girl band of the period, would possibly properly be touring once more quickly.
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At this summer season’s FIFA World Cup, the noughties have been in every single place. Robbie Williams carried out, and the WAGs of the England group (final seen in power when it was VB and co in the course of the 2006 match) have been very a lot again, now that includes Bukayo Saka’s fiancée Tolami Benson and Ashlyn Castro, Jude Bellingham’s girlfriend, and we anticipate to them once more at London Trend Week.
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In the meantime, Cara Delevingne, the face (and eyebrows) of the ’00s, is releasing new music and has a Topshop collaboration that simply dropped. After specializing in everybody from French girls to West Village Ladies in recent times, is our type now shifting a bit of nearer to residence?
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Mark Knox started Brit Cult in 2018 with an image of Williams, no much less. Eight years later, he has 140k followers, individuals who love the account for photos of celebrities together with Kate Moss, Madonna and Beckham of their youthful days, in addition to deeper cuts together with Sara Cox, McFly and Misteeq. He has a reasonably vast remit for posts, spanning from 1990 to 2009, however these within the latter a part of this period are usually the preferred. “Early 2000s style could be very ‘in’, so folks love seeing these kinds of photos, though I am noticing that there’s a slight shift to in a while within the 2000s,” he says.
A part of that is clearly nostalgia. Knox is 36, wanting again on the formative interval of his life as an adolescent round 20 years in the past. It appears loads of us get pleasure from doing the identical. However (crucially), he says that Brit Cult isn’t only a “keep in mind when?” love-in. In reality, among the customers these posts are seeing the photographs with contemporary eyes. “The demographics over the previous couple of years have turn into youthful. There are much more people who find themselves keen on wanting again at a time they do not keep in mind.”
The Gen Z and Gen Alpha cohort, it is likely to be a window into pre-internet life. “There was extra of a monoculture [then] which I feel folks really lengthy for,” says Knox. “Trying again and going ‘Everybody was into this, everybody was watching that, everybody was carrying this’, it looks as if one thing that might be welcomed now, however it will be virtually unattainable to do.”
After which there’s one of the best bit: noughties UK style. Burberry’s traditional Nova Examine (please search for EastEnders’ Daniella Westbrook carrying it head to toe if you happen to’ve by no means seen this image) is again, and the bikini has been noticed on fashionable solar loungers this summer season. On the excessive avenue, Topshop (that rite-of-passage vacation spot for mainly each millennial girl) is again after a hiatus, and London Trend Week designer Aaron Esh is relaunching the period’s go-to model for gray skinny denims—Allsaints—this September.
Speaking of London Trend Week, some might say the noughties have been its final golden age, when it was dominated by designers comparable to Erdem, Jonathan Saunders, Roksanda and Christopher Kane. Fortunately, 20-odd years later, there’s pleasure across the London exhibits once more, due to the British Trend Council’s new CEO, Laura Weir, who is targeted on supporting new expertise and giving area to the names based mostly right here. This September, a brand new cohort of younger designers are being backed by BFC Newgen sponsorship, together with Johanna Parv, Petra Fagerstrom and Yaku, while McQueen is again on the schedule for the primary time since 2023 and Kane has taken the reins at Mulberry, after three years away from style.
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Harriet Fast was style options editor at British Vogue in the course of the noughties. She describes it as a “very vivid and vibrant” time, partly as a result of tradition was central to style after the inventive explosion of the nineties, and likewise as a result of designers had distinct factors of view. “Though their sentiments [were similar], their design language was radically totally different from each other,” she explains. “They have been actually fairly irreverent; folks with loads of vitality, fairly just like the technology earlier than.”
Fast is impressed by how most of the period’s key names stay on the high of style now, from Jonathan Anderson at Dior to Kane at Mulberry and Saunders, just lately named inventive director at Kate Spade, together with Erdem and Roksanda as must-sees on the LFW schedule, and Martine Rose remaining one of many most-loved British manufacturers. “I do suppose there is a longevity there, and it is by means of persistence,” she says, including, “Jonathan Saunders [for example] has obtained such a transparent focus. He understands manufacturers rather well.”
(Picture credit score: Getty Pictures)
Arguably, because the nineties influenced the noughties cohort, the 2020s creatives are considerably strolling the trail laid out by those that got here earlier than them—even when there’s been a slight delay. Knox says he sees reverberations from this period—whether or not in Charli XCX, who echoes the messy however enjoyable rock-and-roll spirit of somebody like Robbie Williams in his noughties pomp, or the return of thin denims to the runways. “I all the time attempt to assist folks see a line between what’s taking place now and what [happened] then, he says. “You may inform within the feedback [on his Instagram posts] that some folks recognize the commentary round how issues join.”
Finally, Knox hopes that reminiscent of this period—one which wasn’t dominated by “on-line”—might spell one thing good going ahead. “If it wasn’t higher [then], it was positively extra optimistic,” he says. “Issues can appear much more doom and gloom now. If [younger people] are all regarding and loving the positivity of the previous, hopefully they’ll carry that into the long run.”
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