The 2010s Fashion Trends That Defined the Decade

The dawn of Instagram gave rise to picture-perfect new trends.

street style hamburg october 08, 2018
(Image credit: Jeremy Moeller)

We're fresh into a new decade, but who doesn't love to reminisce about old trends? The 2010s are a critical time in fashion history: Thanks to one app, the industry underwent a major cultural shift. Instagram was born in 2010 and our world hasn't been the same since. Along with Instagram came influencers, wellness culture, and the idea of "pics or it didn't happen." Meanwhile, the industry resurrected trends from the past, like '90s-inspired dad sneakers and festival fashion that paid homage to the Woodstock era. But this decade also gave us totally new ideas, like athleisure and Instagram-approved must-have accessories. Take a trip down memory lane with us.

Emma Childs
Fashion Features Editor

Emma is the fashion features editor at Marie Claire, where she explores the intersection of style and human interest storytelling. She covers viral styling hacks and zeitgeist-y trends—like TikTok's "Olsen Tuck" and Substack's "Shirt Sandwiches"—and has written hundreds of runway-researched trend reports about the ready-to-wear silhouettes, shoes, bags, colors, and coats to shop for each season. Above all, Emma enjoys connecting with real people to yap about fashion, from picking an indie designer's brain to speaking with athlete stylists, entertainers, artists, politicians, chefs, and C-suite executives about finding a personal style as you age or reconnecting with your clothes postpartum.

Emma previously wrote for The Zoe Report, Editorialist, Elite Daily, Bustle, and Mission Magazine. She studied Fashion Studies and New Media at Fordham University Lincoln Center and launched her own magazine, Childs Play Magazine, in 2015 as a creative pastime. When Emma isn't waxing poetic about niche fashion discourse on the internet, you'll find her stalking eBay for designer vintage, reading literary fiction on her Kindle, doing hot yoga, and "psspsspssp-ing" at bodega cats.