It’s Comeback Season: Fashion in 2024

Years come and go in a blur in the fashion world and with the rapidity of the micro-trend, it's hard to keep up with the ever changing fashion climate. With this, a great many words could sum up the fashion scene of 2024, but the one that appears to capture it the most is ‘comeback.’

Fashion trends are circular in nature and it seems 2024 gave rise to the comeback of early 2000’s y2k. Wide-leg jeans, leather jackets, jerseys, low-rise denim, bedazzled belts and heavily accessorized fits ran rampant at UNC all year long as a baggy silhouette did not come to play this season. 

But perhaps the thing that appeared to have the strongest fashion comeback this year was not so much a simple trend but instead just clothing itself. Vintage, buying second hand and reinventing the old into something new played a massive role in fashion during 2024. 

Savannah Mathews, a student brand ambassador for Depop at UNC, took note of the overall shift from buying retail to repurposing one's old wardrobe through her involvement with the second-hand reselling site. 

“It's just really cool to reclaim things that you once really liked, and I have been seeing that more in the culture, like as a whole, especially with fashion,” Mathews said. “I really, really adore that.”

This affinity was not only prevalent in the student body, but also in clubs and markets on and off campus. Throughout the year, students had the opportunity to shop second-hand either in the Pit, through events sponsored by clubs like UNC Epsilon Eta, or on Franklin Street through the Chapel Hill Vintage Market.

For some student’s, they only needed to travel as far as the dorm next-door. Surafele Sintayehu, a sophomore at UNC, is the owner of his own fashion reselling instagram account, 711 Vintage, with his focus clientele being fellow students.

Social media — Instagram, Tik Tok, Pinterest — continued to influence the overall fashion climate of 2024. However, on campus, the instagram account, Tuff Fit Tuesday, rose in popularity this year. 

Will Walker III, a UNC student and founder of Tuff Fit Tuesday, has used the platform to highlight outfits on and off campus that start a conversation. Through the account, he has featured many different trends of 2024, but the comeback of vintage fashion has stood out to him. 

“I think throughout the page, you can see, like waves of trends go through.” Walker said. “Recently, thrifting has kind of taken off and become very important, and that kind of goes to the point of sustainable fashion. I think a lot of people are starting to take that more seriously as they create their wardrobes.”

The comeback of old trends and clothing made their mark this year, and perhaps the macro-trend has begun to come back as well. 

“I feel like trends are becoming less mainstream, if that makes any sense,” Mathews said. “With a huge uptick in, quote, unquote, individualism and more unique pieces.”

Sabrina Shaw, executive producer for the UNC fashion magazine platform Xpressions, has been shopping second hand ever since she was a young girl. She said that through thrifting, she has been able to express herself in ways that she couldn’t otherwise and that are true to her and her own style. This creativity, to her, is intrinsically what fashion is.

Overall, fashion in 2024 has been rife with comebacks ranging from the revival of old trends, forgotten clothing, and athletic wear. Thrifting becoming the new normal signals a potential macro-trend mentality that has not been seen since the onset of fast fashion. 

Perhaps students and consumers are becoming more sustainably conscious, or perhaps they are just enjoying the unique pieces that you can only seem to uncover when you shop second-hand. 

“I think it's such a cool culture to be like, Where'd you get that from?” Shaw said. “I think that's such a cool community that we built just based on fashion.”

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