Oh, Goldenpig, I should have been studying more Popular culture, subcultures and how people make meaning interest me, hence I have my anthropology/religious studies BA underway (stuffed in a drawer in the back of my mind - on hold while my kids take up most of my energy!)
I wish I had photos of me back then, but very few, and none digital.
Aughties - I haven't given this as much thought, and my nose was buried in working fulltime, then in the latter part having my first child and studying.
Off the top of my head - early 2000s - Britney Spears, hipster jeans with a good flare and often some stretch were EVERYWHERE. This pronounced pear was in heaven! They were sometimes so low that the concurrent rise of Brazilian waxing might have been a necessity
They looked great with midriff tops, in fact most tops from that era that I find on thrift seem really short now (it doesn't help that post children, I too have the dreaded "muffin top" - a term coined because of the short tops and the hipster jeans! I'm working on it though ^_^).
The Lululemon look so many mums sport now? I don't think that was around then; because while I was pregnant in 2003, I bought Brazilian activewear pants to wear as streetwear and thought I was sooo clever (well, I was - I had a navy pair and a bright red pair, and nobody else was wearing them!).
Now that I think back, the pregnancy clothes I and my friends wore were very different to the ones I wore in 2008. We all seemed to wear flares, a few of us had knee-length stretchy skirts, and we all proudly bared our bellies in our short tops (we even had a micro-trend going of wrapping a large scarf around the belly to cover/protect/highlight it!)
By 2008, short tops seemed like ancient history, the tops for sale were long, and by the 2nd pregnancy that was a lot more welcome anyway :). Flares were few and far between (although I did buy man-style wide-legged stretch pants from a dance-oriented clothing line). LOTS of women wore leggings with tunics. (not me)
2007 was when I first noticed skinny jeans and learnt the term. This was a HUGE shift. The Britney (Shakira?) look was GONE.
Ballet flats (which I can't wear) took over. Boyfriend cardigans were everywhere on campus. It was a very pear-unfriendly look.
Lots of people wore thongs (flipflops) which made me want to hurl! At the same time I was becoming more ladylike and classic-with-quirk in my style.
2000s popularised hair straighteners and stick straight hair for all
By the end of the aughties, boots took over the world. At least in Australia boots were few and far between and at least a few hundred dollars a pair; unique styles or non-neutral colours were especially rare.
Now, there are so many boots you can't tell the Fryes from the pleather Payless ones. A mixed blessing. It's good that they're available but trying to find a Holy Grail pair has me deep breathing into a paper bag. Plus, 15 years ago boots used to be too tight for me. Now they're all too loose! Have people gotten fatter? Maybe, but I think it's the skinny leg jean striking once again (boots are now designed for tucking, not tights!).
Oh, lets not forget the ordeal of the smock! We had a few years of smocky tunics being ubiquitous. Again, very un-pear friendly silhouette.
I'm not sure if it started earlier, but it was during the 2000s that I noticed the cheap Asian clothing shops popping up in malls. For the first time, fashion was easy to get.
The price was uniqueness. That vintage-inspired print that you always dreamed of loses its thrill when you see it on every second person chainsmoking at the bus stop. Quality, too. It started to get harder to determine whether something was well-made, out of quality materials. Or whether there was ANYWHERE you could find such a thing.
I think this era was also the source of the trend that refuses to die. Skinny jeans. Ballet flats. Over-the-knee boots. They have all hung around for years. I think this is a new thing, I think trends used to be orchestrated more from a central source (or from subcultures). 2 things have happened - removal of tariffs (at least in Australia) so the cheap repro clothes just keep on coming. The clothes simply don't run out! The other thing is the internet has become a way of life. Trends are far less local and are fed by seeing them displayed in many more sources, as well as being able to buy them from more sources.
80s became the main retro inspiration, starting with mullet haircuts for the edgy, and ending with high-waisted jeans not being funny anymore.
But further to that, old-school vintage went fully mainstream. If you don't have time to thrift you can now shop on Etsy, hell, you can buy ready-made vintage-inspired from Anthro, Modcloth and others of their ilk. You can see the pieces on Glee. Every man and his dog has either seen Mad Men or read a magazine article (or blog post) about it. Every second Ebay seller tags their clothes "Mad Men". Fashion blogs and OOTD websites proliferate, and the main trend is actually mixing on-trend pieces with thrifted or vintage stuff. "Remixing" is the word of the day.
Disclaimer: these are the random, unedited ravings of a fatigue-addled mind. Feel free to correct!
And, thankyou Vildy <333