The Return of Millennial Trends
What a kick to watch two millennial reporters in a WaPo video romp through clothing stores that now sell the same styles they wore in high school. The giggled as they modeled bubble hems, lace-trim tank tops, distressed denim miniskirts, and long-sleeved rugby polos. One of their favorites was a belted prairie skirt with a Henley T-shirt. Reporter Ashley Fellers Maloy laughed, “I’m in the 9th grade now!”
Fashion is cyclical, of course. What once made us cringe eventually reappears on the racks, shiny and new, ready for the next generation. Watching millennials revisit their own teen closets made me think about the last time my wardrobe was suddenly “back in style.”
Remembering My 70s Closet
Bell-bottom hip-hugging jeans. Ribbed poor boy T-shirts. Bohemian prints. Fringe everywhere. That was my teenage wardrobe in the 1970s, and when it returned decades later, I felt both amused and unsettled, and maybe a bit haunted. Those clothes weren’t just clothes. They carried with them all the messy confusion of being a teenager. My messy confusion.
Were the 70s Really That Cool?
When I took a poetry class at the University of Michigan in the late 90s, the college students were fascinated by the 70s. They peppered me with questions:
“Was it as cool as it sounds?” (Not really…)
“What bands did you see live?” (Three Dog Night, The Allman Brothers, Jethro Tull...)
They wanted me to confirm their groovy fantasies, but the truth is, nothing feels all that groovy when you’re a teenager living through it. Nostalgia has a way of airbrushing the rough edges, sanding away the boredom, confusion, and loneliness that actually defined the era.
One of our class assignments was to write a performance poem. What I wrote tried to capture what the 70s really felt like to me. Not the bell bottoms, not the music, not the peace and love that everyone associates with the decade, but the messy, raw, complicated reality of being a teen and trying to survive it.
Here is that poem (names changed to protect the innocent):
IN LAVENDER
I was wearing lavender
eyeliner on a Three Dog Night
full of Ripple in Public
Hall & we were sandwiches
in cheap balcony seats. Everyone
was screaming for Jeremiah,
I was hangin’ on like love
beads & couldn’t help it,
man— I puked.
Carl dragged me
to the johns & Micky had to
give the girl in front of me
5 bucks for her blouse.
We crashed at Richie’s.
His parents didn’t have
pictures on the walls or even
regular food in the fridge.
They were divorced.
Kids I didn’t know laid
in pieces under the kitchen
table, their faces stuck
in paper bags full of glue.
Carl and I played tricks
on them, once freaked
Alexa by telling her Quaaludes
& goofers would fry her DNA.
I stashed God & my bra
in my macramé bag & followed Carl
everywhere. It was tru LUV.
He taught me how to roll
weed. For his 18th birthday,
I embroidered the Zig Zag Man
on his jeans & for my 16th, he threw
me a tie-dyed party with a 2-layer
frosted cake that even had
my name on it & we cut it
with our hands &
ate it with our fingers.
It was 1970. Everything was weird.
Then Carl started to fry
from hits of windowpane,
looking for previous lives &
he said he saw God
shopping for flannel shirts
at Bargain City. He slipped in
& out of so many
different people, he lost
my name
& my number
& one day
I couldn’t reach him.
Richie’s house was leveled
to build Route 21 & he totaled
his Ford Pinto on it 4 years later.
I heard Micky hung
himself with his pants
in the Brecksville Jail. No one
knew his crime. Carl’s still
chasing after other lives & I’m
cold. Some nights I lie in bed
with the windows wide
open & the room spins
back to 1970 & I see
Carl leaping back to me
just like Jeremiah
but the only thing I’m sure of
is lavender was never
a good shade for me.
From Postcard of a Naked Man, poetry chapbook, March Street Press, 2003
The poem reminds me that when we talk about trends, whether it’s bubble hems, prairie skirts, or hip-hugging bell bottoms, we’re really talking about memories. Fashion comes back around, but the lives we lived wearing those clothes don’t. They stay stitched into the fabric of who we were, in all its weirdness, pain and angst. Nostalgia doesn’t always look so great in the mirror.
Thank you for visiting!
Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a wrangler of words and big messy feelings. Her second novel, Love and Other Incurable Ailments, is coming October 27, 2026 from Regal House Publishing: When love letters from a despondent stranger land in her lap, an anxiety-ridden overthinker becomes convinced she’s the cure, and sets off to save him, and herself, blissfully armed with nothing but magical thinking.
Connect with Linda on social media via LinkTree. Check out Linda’s Books.
Sign up for her newsletter and never miss an event, announcement or giveaway!
