What trends do you define a year with? Whether it is fashion statements, online challenges or subversive music, nostalgia places rose-colored glasses upon our eyes as we begin to view once-hated trends as cute, “vintage” throwback pieces. 2025 has already been easily placed into the box of labubus, the “67” meme and Taylor Swift’s numerous controversies and album drop.
So, as the first month of 2026 comes to an end, the first indication of a larger trend for the year is a simple phrase encapsulating a few smaller trends seen throughout January: “Welcome Back, 2016!” The nostalgia-baiting trend, contained mostly within the digital walls of TikTok and Instagram, features posts sharing outfits, showing renditions of popular aesthetics and posts attempting to brag about which age users experienced 2016 in.
So, as the trend’s grasp on the internet continues not to falter, here are four trends I’m glad to see rising from their dormancy and reentering the 2026 zeitgeist.
Rio de Janeiro
A key driver of the 2016 throwback trend is the visual language used by the Instagram filter called “Rio de Janeiro.” While users are not being transported to Brazil, the filter color grades the photos to appear brighter and louder. The use of the filter within the trend is simply because it was a popular filter a decade ago.
The filter had a resurgence in 2022 after it took off as a meme, with people ironically putting it on random images. As the meme took off, I thought it was funny to apply to random images in my camera roll, but, I slowly started to see it be used more and more. Sort of like exposure therapy, I think I unironically like the filter, and I am excited to see that it is “in” again for 2026.
Tall Uggs
Micro-Uggs, platform Uggs, lace-up Uggs; literally any other Ugg than the original tall Ugg has been trending within the past five years. Banished from the mainstream Uggs around 2016, the internet has finally decided this style of winter boot is back with style-driving celebrities like Bella Hadid and Lily-Rose Depp flaunting them.
As an owner of three pairs of Uggs, I am excited to see more people wearing knee-high boots, especially because they are so simple and can be styled with almost every outfit imaginable.
Mustaches
Mustaches are coming back, as facial hair and the iconic finger tattoos that some millennials got in the early 2010s and will regret for years to come. As more romanticization videos from a decade ago appear online, the mustache trend slowly comes back as more men slowly grow them out and others draw the symbol on the inside of their pointer finger.
While the mustache tattoos and paraphernalia were most popular during the 2012 “Tumblr era,” 2016 was the year me and all my friends were obsessed with mustaches. So, while I may not be entirely accurate on the exact trend cycle, it took a few years for this trend to reach elementary schools. Either way, I am happy to see the videos of the mustache tattoos coming back because I think they are fun.
Capri pants
Originally popularized in the late 1990s by Carrie Bradshaw’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) iconic wardrobe in “Sex and the City,” capri pants have cycled in and out of trend cycles for the past 30 years. Inspired by the ‘90s trends, the capris came back in full force around 2016 with popular television shows like “New Girl” having characters sporting the cropped pant.
Now, they are coming into the cycle again as Hadid is seen wearing them, inspiring social media to remember hype around these controversial pants.
Overall, I remember 2016 trends with a bipolar point of view, as both distasteful and tasteful at the same time. As the decade repeats the fashion cycle again, these are some that I think should be here to stay.
