11 Fashion Trends It Would Be Nice to See Die in 2011

by Liz Colville

Skinny jeans may never leave us, but I can live with their presence. So, too, leggings, which are just skinny jeans without that feeling that a thin layer of cement has been applied to your lower body. But there are certain other material specimens that have been hanging around an awfully long time. It would be nice to see them give way to — well, anything.

These lurking trends might be sustainable, as in unable to know when to quit, but because they’re trends, inspired by more expensive versions of themselves (which probably first appeared on the runways around, say, Fall 2008), they’re likely to be cheap. The items may be versatile in theory, but crappy in practice. In other cases, it’s just sad to see so many people wearing the same thing. And here we go.

1. The ever-useful, usually affordable pair of black flats. Useful, yes, but they tend to be made of cheap synthetic materials, as in this pair from Urban Outfitters. The upper material, a sort of cardboard-seeming substance, is glued casually to the sole. In other words, three weeks of walking in New York and the two portions of the shoe preventing your foot from touching the sidewalk have gotten a divorce, if you will. At $28, what did you (I) expect? If you would like to mistake this for a rant about how all of Urban Outfitters’ brand shoes seem to be made of cardboard, please do.

2. Oversized wayfarer-style spectacles. Pleeeeeeaaaaaaase please please please.

3. Barbour jackets, if you are not your parents. The one real issue with these jackets is that they are not warm at all and seem to only be vaguely waterproof. How do I know this? Shush.

4. Spats.

5. Stripes, but particularly nautical stripes. I sort of hate to see this one go, but it’s high time.

6. Muscle-toning shoes. An idiotic trend targeted pretty much exclusively to women. Happily, this type of shoe was found to be bunk by the American Council on Exercise last summer.

7. Deep, deep men’s v-necks. So deep! Too deep.

8. Articles about fashion inspired by Black Swan.

9. Whatever is happening here.

10. The very obvious choice, but necessary: jeggings, worn here by, and seemingly restricting the movement of, Whitney Port.

11. Harem pants, which suggested they might be going away and then swung back around. Let us kick these to the curb once and for all, unless you’re carrying fetuses in your legs. Then by all means.

Top photo via lookbook.nu