Bringing back the 2000's fashion and expression with the Everlasting Argentian TV show Rebelde
Image Courtesy: Strike UCF
FADE IN:
INT. TEEN’S ROOM- DAY
The window is open. The breeze curls the white curtains in between the metal handle and the faded wall. The room is overfilled with posters. The Black Eyed Peas and Avril Lavigne hang high. Girl clings her feet together with evident eagerness, she sits on the floor clenching mercilessly at a yellow magazine. She wears a belly-baring top and low-rise, dark blue jeans. TV is on, a song plays in the background:
Si tu miedo cargás, es que vivo estás
If you carry your fear, it means that you’re alive
Jugate a tu verdad
Play your truth
Rebelde way
Rebelde Way
FADE OUT.
I grew up in a rabbit hole of a suburb in Athens, Greece. I used to stare at the news on the TV over my parent’s shoulders stupified by what was going on in a far larger world of what I was living in. I couldn’t understand much, but when the screen brightened up with celebrity gossip, my jaw leaped out of my face. America was simply unreachable! Could I ever be a kid like the ones in the commercials? I doubted it, until one day as I was scrolling through the international channels I stopped to consider one of the series that had been very popular with the older kids at school; “Ανυπότακτες Καρδιές/ Rebelde Way.” I began watching it because of the early 2000s fashion pieces. They made me cringe since a couple of years had passed since they were in style but also thought there was nothing cooler than mini skirts and long sleeves under T-shirts. I was eager to come home after school; I would devour my meal in three bites and run to the room before the intro song had finished.
Some may remember the early 2000s fashion as one of the most disastrous, passé moments. This may be due to the way in which the era was hungry for distinction, to be unlike any preceding decade. Distinguished by mismatching fabrics, ridiculously colorful shirts, and pants that never fit right in the waist or hips. It went too far, losing track of what’s chic and what’s playful. Nobody can disagree that it was an era of teen rebellion, when kids and young adults got to play out their main character moment, got to fall in love passionately with no strings attached, slapping their flip flops and high rise boots on the concrete with confidence, leaving their mark and living the moment as if it were the last.
Because of my love for the show watching all these long-forgotten fashion trends steadily making a comeback, I’ve come to remember iconic peaks of my childhood. There is nothing more iconic than the Argentian Series Rebelde Way. A series that left every single seventeen-year-old in 2003, across South America and Europe, mooning over fits of a romantic, secretly rich lead singer. I used to stare at my wide-open closet hoping a white and black checkered button-up would somehow complement an orange graphic tee. We may not be able to bestow ourselves completely to a funky past, but we certainly can transform into the bad girls of the century. After endless scrolling on Tik Tok and Instagram, I found my top favorite ways to recreate these fits in 2021.
Image Courtesy: Pinterest and @notyourelle via Instagram
Contemporary private school uniforms are back with a vengeance in our wardrobe. Undoubtedly legendary for college artists and thrift shopping addicts who find themselves collecting random clothing pieces for three and four dollars in second-hand stores. School uniforms are the oxymoron of Marizza Pía Spirito, the headstrong, passionate and stubborn bad girl of the show. Pastel colors and long sleeve button-ups are one way to upgrade the look that thrived during the early 2000s in all TV. Tik Tok, Instagram, Pinterest have all been occupied with young women being their most authentic, idiosyncratic selves. What’s more authentic than upcycling one of the most contradicting aesthetics we’ve ever lived? Preppy yet urban, its embodiment is a symbol of rebel spirit.
Image Courtesy: Pinterest and @isamariajones on Instagram
Low-rise shorts and skirts, thick heavy belts, and vibrant tees definitely didn’t sound and look as astonishing as they’ve come to be with the shifting trends since quarantine. It never crossed my mind that they would ever come back in style, especially with how we clung to high-waisted mom jeans as if they were the only bottoms we could show up on a regular date. No shame, that was certainly me during the first two years of college. Regardless of how skeptical I was with this look, I always keep old trend items around just in case and now is the perfect time to make magic out of those pieces. Old trends always find their way back eventually. I’ve learned that the hard way. I’ve definitely ugly cried over clothes I’ve given away and regretted. Fishnet stockings are in like they’ve never been before. They are the perfect addition for a punk rock-influenced fit. You could also go in a completely different direction with cowboy boots and hats for the western/ classic that’s been roaming online fashion.
Regardless of what the world expects us to wear now that we are entering new stages of adulthood, we’ll never stop looking back to relive childhood dreams. A dream of being a rockstar. A dream of being as endless as fashion, of finding our truths in the ways fabrics wrap around our minds and bodies in synchronicity. A dream of finding the voice of the rebel within. 2021 has been about finding ourselves within a loud crowd, making a statement, and what better way to recognize our volume than to travel back in time to the most chaotic and talked-over fashion period of all?
Strike Out,
Writer: Ioanna Papari-Kosiori
Editor: Lindsey Valenti
Orlando
