At some point, we’ve bumped our heads and woken in a ’90s fantasia. In this new-old world there are cargo pants, slip dresses and swooning for Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s minimalism. Kate Moss is on the runway. Oasis keeps going on tour. Nevermind (in the words of Nirvana) that it’s 2026. The cultural moment appears fixated on the last decade before smartphones, social media and algorithmic feeds took over. A time when IRL was the only life.
If the ’80s was bombastic excess, the ’90s United Kingdom was the epicenter of stripped-back rebellion. In 1996, “Trainspotting” spat out “Choose Life” in rejection of middle-class consumerism, and creatives embraced a new, raw aesthetic. You saw it in the decade’s indie mags, hip hop and messy beds of Young British Artists.
