Ugg boots. Low-rise jeans. Ballet pumps. I’ve looked on with varying levels of concern as the trends of my adolescence have been exhumed and reimagined for a younger generation. And every time another Noughties look has been reclaimed as desirable Y2K nostalgia, a voice in my head has whispered: “Please, whatever comes next, don’t let it be shorts and tights.”
For a stretch of the late Noughties, a period that roughly coincided with the premiership of Gordon Brown, layering miniature shorts over a pair of bog-standard black opaques was somehow deemed the height of cool (if you were young, female, fashion-obsessed and spent all your surplus income in Topshop). Alexa Chung wore shorts and tights with collared blouses that looked vaguely Parisian. Sienna Miller teamed them with floaty boho tops. The Gossip Girl girls modelled the look while strolling around New York’s Upper East Side, swapping plain black for colourful hosiery.
