Before you buy it, check your mom’s closet

Fendi introduced its iconic Baguette in 1997, designed by Silvia Venturini Fendi. Small, rectangular and designed to sit snugly underneath the arm—like, yes, a French baguette—it quickly became one of the defining “It bags” of the late ‘90s and early 2000s.

Look through enough photos and chances are you will find your mother carrying some variation of it: a little shoulder bag tucked tightly under her arm.

Now: 2026 

Almost 30 years later, we have come full circle.

For fall/winter 2026-7, Fendi revisited the original Baguette, even reworking its original 26424 version. The small east-west shoulder bag has also returned far beyond Fendi, with vintage versions and similar silhouettes showing up everywhere again.

The difference is that the bag your mother simply called her purse now has a much more desirable label: vintage. For Gen Z, that one word is practically enough to trigger an “add to cart” reflex—or a battle over the last one hanging on the rack at a thrift pop-up.

Turns out, sometimes an It bag just needs to sit in a closet for a few years before becoming an It bag again.

The Shoe: Ballet flats 

Then: 2004-2007

Ballet flats existed long before the 2000s, but this was the period when they became practically unavoidable.

By the mid-2000s, the dainty, flat shoe had become a staple on women like Kate Moss, Alexa Chung, and Sienna Miller. Vogue was already making “the case for flats” in 2004, and by 2007, the Repetto ballet-flat craze was big enough to earn its own Vogue coverage.

For anyone who lived through the era, they probably remember the formula: ballet flats with skinny jeans, ballet flats with dresses, ballet flats with leggings, ballet flats with almost everything!

Then, as fashion tends to do, we decided they were dated and moved onto sneakers.

Now: 2026 

But now, they’re cool again—and somehow, they’ve even become sneakers themselves. What’s also changed is the styling: we may have lost the ballet-flat-and-skinny-jeans combo, but we’ve gained ballet flats paired with loose-fitting denim.

Ballet flats are once again an It-girl shoe. Hailey Bieber, Kaia Gerber, Lily-Rose Depp, and Olivia Rodrigo have all been spotted in them.

British Vogue declared in June that ballet pumps were “here to stay for 2026”—and so they have, with designers stretching the original idea into mesh flats, glove flats, ballet sneakers, and barely-there versions. 

The Bottoms: Capri Pants 

Then: Late 1990s-early 2000s

To match perfectly with a pair of ballet flats you most likely own, the capris are a perfect choice. These pants have actually been through more than one lifetime. The cropped trousers were created decades earlier and became fashionable in the ‘50s and ‘60s. But they experienced another major revival in the late ‘90s and early 2000s.

Slim, calf-baring capris appeared everywhere, from casual holiday dressing to much more polished looks. Gucci was showing sleek black versions under Tom Ford in the early 2000s.

And then they were banished into fashion purgatory.

For almost a decade, capris were dismissed as “cheugy,” “unflattering,” or just plain daggy. They were too long to be shorts, too short to be pants, and somehow associated with someone’s uncool mother on vacation.

Now: 2026 

I fear we owe capri pants and our mothers an apology.

They were all over the spring/summer 2026 runways, appearing at Versace, Ralph Lauren, and Isabel Marant, while Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and other current style references have helped bring the silhouette back into everyday dressing.

The 2026 capri is often slim and minimal, paired with ballet flats, kitten heels, fitted tops, or oversized jumpers.

An item once considered cheugy and dated, mocked with an “Ew, why are your ankles showing?” and written off as derogatorily “mom-coded” can now be described with the most powerful phrase in fashion:

It-girl approved.  

Fashion really is mostly about timing.

The Top: 3/4-sleeve top 

The Headpiece: Zig-zag headband 

Then: Late 1990s-early 2000s

A thin plastic headband lined with little teeth, pushed backwards through the hair to create that unmistakable zigzag pattern along the hairline.

In the late ‘90s and early 2000s, the stretch-comb headband was everywhere. It belonged to the era of tiny sunglasses, straightened hair, and many other accessories that elevated the outfit.

It was practical, inexpensive, and so ordinary that nobody could have predicted it would one day need a fashion revival.

Eventually, like butterfly clips and countless other hair accessories, it was relegated to bathroom drawers and old photographs. 

Now: 2026

Then Miu Miu put it on the runway.

For fall/winter 2026, the fashion house incorporated zigzag headbands throughout its collection, turning the inexpensive hair accessory into high fashion.

Gen Z’s favorite It girl, Hailey Bieber, has since worn hers repeatedly, including in photos shared to Instagram this summer, while Bella Hadid and other fashion girls have also embraced the style.

Only now, something that might once have cost a few pesos at an accessories store can be described as a runway-approved ‘90s revival.

Put all five of these items together and you could either be looking at a very fashionable girl in 2026 or your mother getting ready sometime around the turn of the millennium.

So the next time a new trend convinces you that you urgently need a tiny shoulder bag, ballet flats or a plastic headband, check one place first. 

Your mom’s closet.

She may have been “uso” before you were.