The Y2K Jean Trends We're Shopping In 2026

Last month, Bella Hadid was photographed in Y2K-inspired bootcut jeans and the internet went wild. While it seems like anything that the supermodel and it girl wears is instantly deemed a trend, the impact of Y2k era fashion is much bigger than Hadid. We're all too familiar with how the trend cycle works: what once was fashionable will most likely become fashionable again, no matter how much we swore that we would leave a specific item in the past.

That photo of Hadid in those perfectly fitted bootcut jeans with the most subtle flare had me thinking: what other jean trends popular in the early 2000's has the trend cycle returned to? Whether we credit the popularity of Y2K fashion amongst millennials and gen-z to a craving of nostalgia or believe that the trends really do rotate on a twenty year cycle, there is no denying the impact—even just on denim alone. 

Ahead, the Y2K-inspired jean trends that 2026 runways embraced.

Nothing screams Y2K more than embellished denim—and I'm happy to share that the maximalism embraced in that era is back. The Y2K era is known for heavily decorated denim: studs, rhinestones, sequins, and literally anything you can imagine. Recent runways such as Anna Sui, Dior, and Blumarine played around with this concept: what if our jeans don't have to be boring?

This is the nature of the trend cycle: all fashion trends are inspired by the past in some way, shape, or form. Bootcut jeans, for example, are reminiscent of the flared jeans popularized in the '70s—but just with a less dramatic flare and lower waist. On Alexander McQueen's Spring/Summer 2026 runway, the bootcut jeans presented were low-slung enough to reveal a bumster—the dangerously low-rise silhouette that Lee McQueen popularized in the late '90s. Dior's Spring/Summer runway, on the other hand, had us considering modernized styling of the cut.

There was a significant '70s fashion revival throughout the Y2K era, evident in the popularity of flared pants, crochet, and patchwork jeans—it was the time of That '70s Show and Charlie's Angels, after all. The popularity of patchwork jeans—jeans featuring different fabrics, prints, or washes of denim—is reflective of that the Y2k era's affinity for maximalism and a DIY aesthetic. The return of patchwork denim was solidified on the Spring/Summer 2026 runways of Zimmermann, Stella McCartney, and Junya Watanabe—all in very different ways.

The Y2K era was all about distressed denim, but not the naturally worn in look popularized in the '90s that you might be thinking of. I'm talking about rips that are very obviously intentional, maximal distressing, and fading. Area's Spring/Summer 2026 runway featured a pair low-rise bootcut jeans with rips and maximal fraying right beneath both hips. Simkhai's Spring/Summer 2026 runways featured low-rise bootcut jeans with rips fully down the legs.