We Hope These Cringe-Worthy Fashion Trends Never Come Back In Style

Charlie Golsley | October 17, 2024 10:25 pm

There are some clothing pieces that are truly timeless. The little black dress or a crisp, white collared shirt will never go out of style. The same can't be said for these fashion trends. It might have seemed like frosted tips and neon zebra stripes were cool at the time, but we all knew deep down that they were a bad idea.

Don't be ashamed if you rocked any of these trends though because, let's be honest, we all did. Just be glad you came to your senses and left them in the past.

Teased Bangs Added The Volume No One Needed

sarah jessica parker 1986 film premier
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Barry King/WireImage/Getty Images

Hairstyles from the '80s were already packed with way too much volume. Yet, for some reason, we all decided we needed a little more volume and that teasing our bangs would help the cause.

Teased bangs came in many shapes and forms but they all had to be hairsprayed so much that they just ended up looking hard and crunchy. If you were lucky in the '80s, you got to get your bangs permed which made teasing them way easier.

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JNCO Jeans Took Things Too Far

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We don't have anything against a good wide-legged pant for either women or men. We do have a problem with the terrible JNCO jeans from the '90s. The ultra-wide pants sold in Hot Topic for around $100 each, and the back pockets were bigger than your face.

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Even though the 50-inch inseam seemed like a good idea at the time, JNCO jeans eventually went out of style. Why? JNCO said that "Eventually, you can only make pants so wide. That became our Achilles' heel."

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Poor Ed Hardy Didn't Stand A Chance

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T-shirts are displayed at the Ed-Hardy store
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The rise and fall of the Ed Hardy brand will be something fashion historians look back at in the years to come. What started out as an innocent clothing brand created by tattoo artist Don Ed Hardy turned into one of the most despised brands. Why? Well, they had too many famous people wearing it.

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Ed Hardy was "cool" when Madonna or Shakira was wearing it, but when Jon Gosselin and the Jersey Shore cast started to wear the brand, we all saw its true, unfashionable colors.

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Guy Fieri Is The Only Person Still Allowed To Have Frosted Tips

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N'Sync attending 1998 Billboard Music Awards
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Frosted tips seemed to be a good look when they were on already-good-looking people like Justin Timberlake and Nick Lachey. Even on JT frosted tips weren't the best look. If JT couldn't pull them off, your average teenage boy from Milwaukee couldn't pull them off either.

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We're glad the fashion trend fell out of hand, but there is one person who can still rock the frosted tips. Guy Fieri is legally the only person who can frost his hair because the tips help cool us off after he takes us to Flavortown.

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Super Low-Rise Jeans Are Trying To Make A Comeback

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Model Paris Hilton at an AJ/Armani Jeans and Vibe party
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Super low-rise jeans were all the rage in the early 2000s. Also known as "bumsters," these jeans were so low that women were showing off their thongs and having to shave the top of you-know-where. They've since been replaced by high-rise jeans that we can all collectively agree are much more flattering, but believe it or not, low-rise jeans are trying to make a comeback.

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Celebrities like Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid have been sporting the same low-rise jeans Paris Hilton once wore out and about. Hopefully, they stay in the past.

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Visor Hats Are Trying To Make An Unnecessary Comeback

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American singer and actor Mark Wahlberg wearing visor
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If you're sailing a boat, playing golf, or competition in the French Open, then you're allowed to wear a visor. If you're a teenage boy wearing oversized everything, you're not. That's just the rules of fashion.

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We allowed visor hats their moments in the fashion spotlight in the early 2000s and thankfully they fell away. Despite them being one of the worst fashion trends, the Chads and Brads of the world are trying to bring them back again. Don't let college frat boys bring this bad trend back.

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Thank You, Paris Hilton, For Velour Sweatsuits

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The 2000s was home to a lot of bad matching trends but none are as bad as velour sweatsuits. If you were a cool girl in high school then you were guaranteed to be decked out head-to-toe in a bright pink matching sweatsuit. If you were extra cool, they would have "JUICY" or "BABYGIRL" bedazzled along the butt.

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Then—and only if you were a true 2000s fashion queen—you'd pair the velour sweatsuit with a pair of UGGS and exposed mid-drift to call it a day.

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Huge Shoulder Pads Had Their Time And Place

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Model Stephanie Seymour in Donna Karan's tan wool gabardine suit
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Shoulder pads have a very special place in women's fashion. They were popular in both the '40s and '80s which were both decades where women began entering new areas of the workplace that were traditionally male-dominated. In the '80s, huge shoulder pads let women be fashionable and still play hardball with the men on Wall Street.

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While society still has miles to go, workplace equality has come far enough that women no longer need to look like a football linebacker to get some respect at work.

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The Party Is Over For The Mullet

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Business in the front, party in the back, and a mess all over. The mullet lasted a surprisingly long time but we've finally cut it off. We started seeing stars like David Bowie with mullets in the '70s before they became hugely popular in the '90s. Still, no one could top the mullet worn by country star Billy Ray Cyrus.

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While the mullet has had some revival in the sports world, everyone seems to agree it's not to be taken seriously.

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Snooki's Hair Poof Was Memorable, To Say The Least

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TV personality Nicole "SNOOKI" Polizzi with hair poof
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There are a lot of bad fashion trends that the Jersey Shore cast inspired, but none were as cringe-worthy as the Snooki hair poof. It was kind of like an evolved version of teased bangs, but somehow with even more volume.

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Eventually, a product called the Bump-It came out to help you achieve the look, but before that, we were actually shoving socks and toilet paper tubes under our hair to give it a poof. Oh, the lengths we'll go to for fashion.

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Shutter Shades Were So Bad People Actually Got Hurt

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Rapper Kanye West on stage at the 50th Annual GRAMMY Awards wearing shutter shades
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Kanye West is known to be a fashion innovator but he's created some questionable trends over the years. In 2007, he wore a pair of shutter shades in his music video for "Stronger" and we were all doomed.

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The window blinds-inspired sunglasses became a horrifying trend that actually left people injured. There's a good chance if you wore shutter shades in 2008, you probably fell down a set of stairs or walked into a wall.

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Where Were All The Suit Tailors During The '90s?

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ill fitting suits at the 2003 nba draft
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Remember when we said there are some timeless fashion pieces that will never go out of style? If you thought men's suits were a part of the classification, you're wrong. The '90s were a time when the suit lost the battle against "business casual."

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Basically, the oversized silhouette of the '80s stuck around, but without any fit needed for a suit. The pants were too wide, too long, and the jacket arms could fit a second person. The suits from the decade make you appreciate your tailor a little bit more now.

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The Skirt Over Pants Was A Classic 2000s Era Look

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At the time, it seemed like the perfect trend. You had your favorite pair of bell-bottom jeans and you also had a cute new skirt from Limited Too. Instead of having to split them up into two different outfits, you could wear the skirt over the jeans and still be cool.

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Genius? At the time, yes. Now, not so much. Even though Ashley Tisdale and Britney Spears made the trend look cool, we've all realized splitting those items up are much more fashionable.

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Cartoon Characters Didn't Deserve To Be Dressed As Gangsters

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Who decided in the '90s to make Bugs Bunny wear baggy jeans and a gold chain? He didn't deserve that. That was the trend though. For some reason the coolest shirt a teenage boy could buy in the early '90s was one with their favorite cartoon character wearing the unflattering clothes of the day.

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Maybe it was a way to bridge the gap between childhood and bad teenage fashion sense. The shirts are a fun throwback now, but we're glad they're out of style.

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Dark Lip Liner Never Looked Good

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There are a lot of previous makeup trends that we can chalk up to ignorance. We simply didn't know that blue eyeshadow or ultra-thin eyebrows looked bad. But we can all agree that dark lipliner around lighter lipstick never looked good.

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If the point of lipliner is to make your lips look plump and thick, then why did we think a dark outline would blend in seamlessly? Luckily the makeup industry has evolved and we've learned from these horrendous mistakes.

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Oversized Basketball Jerseys Should Never Have Been Mainstream Fashion

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Aaron Carter performs during Z100's Zootopia 2002 wearing oversized basketball jersey
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The late '80s and early '90s marked a time where we, as a society, decided to make basketball jerseys a part of everyday fashion. It started out innocent as part of the rap and hip hop scenes of the '90s, but it quickly spiraled out of control.

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Before we knew it, innocent eighth graders from Nebraska were wearing jerseys four sizes too big to school and being told to go home and change. Leave the jerseys for the actual sporting events and keep them out of everyday wear.

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We All Know Crocs Are Bad

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 A sample of Crocs shoes on display
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Crocs might be one of the most hated fashion trends of all time, yet they keep sticking around. The foam clog was originally meant as a boating shoe, which we were fine with. Wear your clogs and your visor and be on your way. Then, in 2006, people started buying them for everyday fashion and adding Jibbitz on top to show off their ~*personality*~.

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Despite the fact we've all publicly shamed Crocs for years, they just won't go away.

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Zebra Print Caused Some Serious Sensory Overload

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We love a good animal print when it's done right and in moderation. As we all know though, the word "moderation" wasn't part of the 1980s vocabulary. If you do something in '80s fashion, you have to go all the way with it, and that's how neon zebra stripes were born.

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Zebra print was on everything from pants to jackets and even formal button-up shirts. If the actual print wasn't neon, then there's a good chance it had a neon initial or logo on top.

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Trucker Hats Should Be Strictly For Truckers

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If you're a trucker reading this, then keep on keeping on. It perfectly acceptable for you to wear that hat. Where trucker hats went wrong was when you saw stars like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie wearing pink Von Dutch trucker hats.

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The hats might have seemed edgy and fashionable at the time but they were simply too big and oddly shaped to look good on any teenage girl. We all have bad hair days, but trucker hats didn't deserve to be thrown into the mix.

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Rat Tails Should Have Stayed In Third Grade

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Darren Lockyer Australian Captain with his hair style at Kangaroos training
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One of the hardest pills to swallow growing up in the 1980s was when you realized rat tails weren't just for that one weird kid in grade three. For some reason in the 1980s and early '90s, adults and respectable human beings had rat tails.

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The only thing worse than seeing a rat tail on a 35-year-old man was seeing a braided rat tail on a 35-year-old woman. Luckily, this trend was cut off and so were those rat tails.