and methodology of the thesis research.
A New Retro Style The term “retro” initially referred to the way that some youths wore secondhand clothes as an alternative fashion.12 Now it also refers to new things that are intentionally made to look old.13 This thesis looks at the current revival of the 2000s style called Y2K as a retro style, since it references looks from the 2000s but also makes adjustments. The Y2K fashion trend emerging online is not about fashion professionals studying what exactly people looked like back in the 2000s, but is more of a trending topic now often used as a selling point, and the origin is difficult to trace. This Y2K fashion is not associated with rarity, authenticity, or exclusiveness as vintage from the wine culture14, since these Y2K items sold online are newly designed and mass produced. Then what makes Y2K fashion attractive to young people now? What is the connected identity of the wearers if there is no heritage behind it? Elizabeth Guffey points out in her study of the emergence of “retro” in the context of 1960s popular culture that the Art Nouveau Fever in the 1960s is not only a movement about the old things coming back and being reminiscent, but also, parts of it evolved into a sexy and youthful rebellion. In fact, retro is not simply taking pieces of styles from the past and putting them together again. The point is to look at the past from a new perspective and to “appl[y] them in anomalous settings”, and this is McRobbie, Angela. (1994). “Second-Hand Dresses and the Role of the Ragmarket.” In McRobbie, Angeal (ed.) Postmodernism and Popular Culture. London and New York: Routledge 1994: 135-153. 13 Jenss, Heike. “Vintage: Fashioning Time.” In Jenss, Heike Fashioning Memory : Vintage Style and Youth Culture: 15-36. London: Bloomsbury 2017. 14 Jenss, Heike. “Vintage: Fashioning Time.” 12
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