Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes once said that “styles change, but style never does.” Nevertheless, even the 2022 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee knows that once some things fall out of fashion, they’re not ever coming back. One look at the band’s floppy hair and ruffled collars in the video for 1981’s “Planet Earth” confirms that fact.
Some trends in style and fashion are cyclical. Many men who grew up in the ‘90s, for instance, would have never even dreamed of sporting moustaches for fear of looking like ‘70s B-movie actors. Members of Generation Z, on the other hand, are completely happy to grow out their lip fur and let it fly.
With some other fads, though, we can be completely confident in asserting that those trends are never going to come back – at least, not as anything more than fun historical curiosities enjoyed by a few devotees. Thousands of people still buy vinyl records, for instance – but they’re vastly outnumbered by those who consume their music by streaming it over the Internet.
So, what are some fads from the past few decades that aren’t ever coming back? Here are a few old trends that you might want to avoid unless you’re doggedly determined to change the flow of fashion or enjoy being a walking anachronism.
Landline Phones with Funny Shapes
If you’re a member of Generation X or a Baby Boomer, you might remember the television commercials for Sports Illustrated magazine from the 1980s and early ‘90s. During that period, the magazine offered a very interesting gift for new subscribers: a football-shaped wired landline telephone. The idea sounds completely crazy today. Who in their right mind would want to display such a plastic monstrosity in their living room? The idea was a huge hit at the time, though, with Sports Illustrated giving away about 1.6 million football phones from 1986-1991. Nevertheless, we can say quite confidently that consumers won’t be buying 1.6 million of any novelty landline phone ever again. Landlines themselves are just about extinct, in fact, with carriers in many cities raising their rates to exorbitant levels with the hope that the last few customers will finally cancel.
Smoking
Would you believe that there was a time when 70 percent of men and 40 percent of women in Britain were smokers? Over the past 50 years, though, smoking rates around the world have dropped rapidly as people have come to understand the negative health effects. Greatly increased tobacco taxes have also played a role, making cigarettes such a major portion of the average consumer’s budget that there’s simply no way to justify the expense. The introduction of vaping as a smoke-free alternative to tobacco has also helped to decrease smoking rates in the United Kingdom. Modern vapes from vape shops like V2 Cigs UK provide the same nicotine hit as cigarettes, but they taste much better and won’t make you smell bad. It’s no wonder that the last few remaining smokers are switching to vaping by the millions.
Portable Game Consoles
Here’s another one for the ‘90s kids. Do you remember the time when seemingly every kid on the playground had a Game Boy – or perhaps a Game Gear, if they were really lucky? We think it’s very safe to say that the idea of a portable game console with games sold separately in the form of cartridges, cards or discs is never coming back. The Playdate – a prohibitively expensive black-and-white console that’s clearly intended to be an anachronism – perfectly illustrates what we’re talking about. Why would anyone buy a dedicated console and cartridges when they can just get their phones out and download thousands of games instantly?
Spinning Wheel Rims
Remember spinning rims? Also called “spinners,” these are the wheels with inner spokes that continue turning after your car stops. They were the essence of cool in the bling-obsessed late ‘90s and early 2000s – until they disappeared, seemingly all at once. You can probably count the number of times that you’ve seen spinners over the past 15-20 years on one hand. Although we can’t definitively say that spinners are never coming back, it’s probably not likely to happen until most of the people who were around for the first wave are dead – and by then, we’ll probably all have flying cars anyway.
Fur Coats
Once upon a time, humanity raised animals by the millions, only to kill them, use their skins for clothing and throw the rest away. It’s difficult to imagine, right? People have begun to recognise the inherent cruelty of the fur industry over the past several decades, and it’s safe to say that furs are definitely not fashionable in Britain anymore – especially with more than a third of Britons now calling veganism an “admirable lifestyle.” The idea of wearing furs reached its nadir in 2020 when a Danish mink farm was forced to cull 17 million animals due to a Covid outbreak. Many of the few remaining fur wearers were so thoroughly disgusted that they swore off the fuzzy stuff for life. We think it’s safe to say that furs as fashion statements are most likely never coming back. Leather, though? That’s not going away any time soon.
Bathroom Carpeting
Have you ever lived in a home that had carpeting in the bathroom? Carpets haven’t been fashionable for a while anyway. They’re dust magnets, they’re impossible to clean, and they emit horrible chemicals when they’re new. They still have their place, however, especially in areas that get cold during the winter. The one room in your home that should never have carpeting, though, is the bathroom. A carpeted bathroom seems like a good idea on the surface – hooray, no more cold feet in the morning! – but it’s not long before reality sets in. If you don’t work hard to control the residual moisture, bathroom carpeting will actually grow honest-to-goodness mushrooms – and if that doesn’t scare you, maybe we can interest you in a nice set of spinning rims.
