Late-aughts renaissance: Blackberries, Hervé Léger, and Rachel Zoe’s revival

The trend cycle is at it again!

Ciao!

I got into numerology this week.

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Two years ago, I had my tarot cards read. It’s not something I do often (in fact, less and less so). At the time, the reader told me I was in a “9 year.” A cycle was ending, apparently. I was told to allow the transformation to take place, to let go of what was no longer serving me and resist the urge to hold on.

I hadn’t thought much about numerology since. At some point last year, I realised I was in a “1 year,” the start of a new nine year cycle. So, this week, when I felt a nudge to check in with where I was at numerologically, I was intrigued. Supposedly, I’m now in a “2 year” (which tracks). A year for slowing down, connecting, and building foundations. This week, and the ones before it, I’ve definitely been feeling the shift.

This is low-key my vibe rn

I bring this all up to say this is why you may find my introductions here a little lighter on the personal updates. I’ve always found it harder to write publicly about my days, weeks, months when I’m moving through change. Write the from scar, not the wound, and all that.

I’m sure at some point I’ll share more about what I’m uncovering. After all, the Office is part-personal, part-observational, part-cultural. But perhaps for the next little while, I’ll keep the intros short and sweet.

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This week, I spontaneously changed the topics of this letter in favour of something a little lighter. The trend cycle always brings me joy. What will they bring back next? So it felt deliciously titillating to see the youth of today fawning over Hervé Léger bandage dresses, Blackberries, and the celebrity figures that shaped my own youth.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

Agenda for today’s letter:

1. We need to talk about the Blackberry comeback

2. The Bandage Dress revival

3. And Rachel Zoe brings Y2K to Real Housewives

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We need to talk about the Blackberry comeback

Here’s to pre-iPhone peace

The Blackberry Aesthetic (sourced: Pinterest)

In my youth, I loved a Blackberry. I remember the first one I got. I felt very cool and grown up. I had no friends to message on BBM (that’s Blackberry Messenger, which only lets you chat with other Blackberry users). But I didn’t care.

Once hailed as the tech of choice for cool girls and finance bros alike, the Blackberry is now making a comeback. Last month, global Google searches were up 44%, and up 60% in the US. TikToks of girls unboxing old Blackberries are pulling in millions of views.

@thedivadoesthingsBlackBerry its your time #fyp #blackberry

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This comes at a time where the discourse around Apple is particularly fraught. Notification anxiety and tech overwhelm is at an all-time high. We’re searching for ways to cut screen time, stop doomscrolling, or follow the cool girls and get offline all together.

So, it makes sense that Gen Z are finding solace in the Blackberry. The tech that existed before tech truly overtook our lives. For the uninitiated, the Blackberry was the last it phone before the iPhone. It struck the perfect balance: access to messages, calls, emails and calendar. No addictive apps or endless scroll in sight.

I’m hesitant to say whether this Blackberry revival will grow beyond a TikTok trend. But what it represents will only continue to rise in popularity: digital minimalism, sensory downtime, and a desire to log off.

These days, digital unavailability is becoming the ultimate flex.

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The Bandage Dress Revival

Hervé Léger in, Pretty Little Thing Out

The Bodycon Revival (L to R: A girlie, House of CB, Kaia Gerber)

Something peculiar is happening with the bandage dress. Once the supreme silhouette of the late-aughts, it’s laid dormant for the past decade. Or at least, remained irrelevant to the fashion set. Until now.

To say bandage dresses are ‘coming back’ feels reductionist. For many, they never left. I feel like thousands are still sold daily via Boohoo and Shein. And yet, just as Pretty Little Thing rebrands itself into quiet luxury – quietly removing its cut-outs and bandage silhouettes from the line-up – the bandage dress is finding fashion relevance again.

Kaia Gerber and Nico Parker wore one on the red carpet. They’re going viral online. And House of CB is positioning the bodycon dress as the silhouette of the summer.

@juliaquang🩹❤️‍🩹🩹 #bandagedress #collection

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While this could easily be chalked up to the trend cycle doing what it does best, I think the bodycon revival speaks to something deeper: the ongoing paradox of taste and class. Anecdotally, the bandage dress has long been dismissed as “tacky” by mainstream fashion. But now? It’s being reclassified as ‘cool’ by those we deem stylish.

I think this paradox is interesting. Having ‘bad taste’ has never been cooler. It’s a sentiment that’s steadily grown in acceptance. “Fashion’s greatest designers, arguably the arbiters of good taste, are fixated on what many would file under bad,” Sara McAlpine wrote for Elle UK back in November 2023.

Layer that over the bandage dress revival and a familiar class tension emerges. I often think about Viktoriia Vasileva Substack, Who Gets to Be Low Class? The idea is that so-called ‘low-class’ aesthetics become aspirational, even artistic, when reframed by those with cultural capital. Think Nadia Lee Cohen, and the like.