“Recession indicators” have been kicking around the zeitgeist for ample time now. Too much business casual on the runway? Recession indicator. Skinny jeans are back? Recession indicator. Addison Rae with neon hair and low rise briefs? Recession indicator. No, but really. Society loves to assign buzzwords to indicate a sign of the times we’re living in. That, paired with data that predicts the United States is 43% likely headed towards a recession has begun to make things all feel a little real.
The last recession we experienced (save for COVID recovery) was in 2008. This was a year where Gossip Girl was a focal point of pop culture, where waistlines were recovering from the staggering lows of the early aughts, and pants were slimming down again. Business casual ruled the runway, where mini dresses were layered with blazers and bulky belts, ushering in the idea that “going out” wardrobes were no longer going to be distinguished from office wear.
We’ve seen this return to the runway in droves over the past two years as a response to what has consistently felt like economic uncertainty, alongside the return of indie-sleaze (thanks to brands like Celine), which, off the back of the first signs of waistcoats and fedoras in 2008, took full hold of the trend cycle in 2014 during Tumblr’s boom. Just over a decade later, many of the themes that were a focal point of the pop culture zeitgeist at the time are reemerging now.
Rae’s latest track, Headphones On solidified this. In an Icelandic landscape, the singer dances with neon pink hair, wired headphones, and low rise underwear. If this was 2014, a gif of her riding bareback on a horse would have had hundreds of reblogs by now.
Also, pop girls in generalare rising back up. Lorde is defrosting once again and the anticipation for her new album is as palpable as the release of 2013’s Pure Heroine. Marina (as in, Marina and the Diamonds, Primadonna Girl, Marina) is performing at the Governors Ball in New York City this month, and Lana Del Rey has been teasing an album release for the majority of a year.
Trends have always fed off of nostalgia to cope with the present, and just like the millennial fixation with ‘90s style and the grunge aesthetic, it was only a matter of time before Gen Z became enamoured with the Tumblr girls of the 2010s. As a dutiful scholar of the time, Rae fits right in with her Valencia filters and reblog-ready music videos. The question is: are you ready for the vibe shift?
If recession core has reemerged to signal what we already knew— that the state of the economy is making it harder and harder to prioritize shopping for new clothes, especially if you don’t buy into fast fashion, and that there’s comfort in embracing nostalgia and trends of the past—it makes sense that the revival of the Tumblr aesthetic would not be far behind. Rae is right on the money, and I think it’s time we accept that a very Tumblr girl summer is right around the corner. Daisy chain, anyone?
