Brace yourselves, Gen Z is bringing back 2010s fashion and jeggings

Some of 2010s most controversial style staples are back in vogue, and so are jeggings. And now, they’ve got Spanx built in.

Kim Kardashian made US$4 billion rebranding Bridget Jones’ “absolutely enormous panties” as sexy shapewear for the masses.

Now Spanx, the brand synonymous with sucker-innerers, has launched a curious reboot of its own with its first-ever ready-to-wear denim in Australia.

This article should be prefaced with a trigger warning for millennial women who wore the ubiquitous (and contentious) jeggings in high school, and who have spent the past several years replacing all their skinny and flare jeans with trending Y2K baggy styles to avoid Gen Z’s mockery.

It may seem incredibly premature, but the return of 2010s fashion — categorised as the period between 2010 and 2016 — is just around the corner.

Slowly but surely, the decade’s hallmarks are being transformed from “cheugy” to cool.

Millennial style icons Jess and Lisa Origliasso from The Veronicas in 2014. Picture: Richard Dobson

‘Day to Night fashion’ as photographed in 2010.

Fashion websites are offering tips for replacing your delicate gold jewellery with statement necklaces, insisting peplums are “actually cute”.

The silver lining? “The skinny jean is back,” Vogue UK declared in March, following the Paris autumn/winter 2024 runways.

Stylist Nicole Bonython-Hines with Miss Universe 2024 finalist, Sarah Said-Smith modelling wearable spanx at David Jones. Picture: Justin Lloyd

The word jeggings, last seen entering the Oxford English Dictionary in 2011, was uttered by style mavens with a mixture of trepidation and intrigue.

Now that winter’s truly arrived in Sydney, we have our first glimpse of what jeggings look like in 2024.

“They’re a very comfortable fabric,” Miss Universe Australia finalist Sarah Said-Smith told The Daily Telegraph of Spanx’s new denim line, which she modelled for its Australian residency launch at David Jones on Wednesday.

“They have no zippers or buttons, and the pull-up technology could be great for people with mobility issues,” the 27-year-old Sydney University graduate said.

Jeggings — leggings that are made to look like skin-tight denim jeans — were brought on by the resurgence in style of skinny jeans in the late 2000s, when a higher demand for an even tighter style of pants came about.

“We found there’s a gap in the market, here particularly, for skinny and flare jeans,” Spanx Australia’s brand manager Libby Hinks told Confidential.

“All of the new collections are designed to take you from your desk, to dinner and date night.”

The Princess of Wales, in a peplum dress and statement jewellery. Picture: Getty Images

Jeggings circa 2012, photographed for a style article. Picture: Luka Kauzlari

And yes, that does sound suspiciously like the ubiquitous “7 Looks To Take You From Day To Night” headlines that covered glossy magazines throughout the 2010s.

The last time young women wore business casual to the nightclub, it was a cost-saving exercise. TikTok is calling the trend, resurfacing now for obvious reasons “Recession-Core”.

In 2021, Gen Z declared the skinny jean cancelled and 90s/Y2K fashion “back”.

For the past three years, voluminous cargo pants, low-rise jeans, crop tops, and baggy track pants have ruled the trend cycles.

It’s no coincidence that with the rise in popularity of midriff-baring garments came their best friends: disordered eating and weight loss drugs.

Like the clothes, the latter got a 2024 makeover with Ozempic. We can’t say elder Millennials didn’t warn us about rolling back the hard-won gains of the body positivity movement.

A core premise of the beloved Bridget Jones’s Diary film (2001) is that Bridget Jones is fat.

Actor Renée Zellweger in scene from the 2001 film Bridget Jones’s Diary.

“If I didn’t change soon, I was going to live a life where my major relationship was with a bottle of wine, and I’d finally die fat and alone,” she says.

“Weight 136lb” is the very first thing Bridget writes in her diary. That’s 61 kilos.

Regardless of whether you loved or hated 2010s fashion the first time around, this style shift could be a positive steer away from the problematic diet culture that resurfaced with Y2K trends.

USA actor Renée Zellweger in promotional picture for film ''Bridget Jones's Diary''.

Kim Kardashian promoting her SKIMS line in California. Picture: MEGA/GC Images

“The market has shifted a lot,” Smith-Said said. “We’re seeing shapewear blend into other clothing categories because people still want their clothes to conform to their bodies, not the other way around.”

The jeans are fitted with their trademark technology to flatter the stomach, and are intended to work with or without shapewear underneath. The same goes for their new essentials and workwear collections.