For a lot of people, quarantine became a time of self discovery. Due to the lack of human interaction and very little change of scenery, what else are you going to focus on other than yourself? 

Since teenagers and young adults had been ripped away from school for an extremely unexpected amount of time, a lot of them took this as an opportunity to do things with their appearance that they had been too scared to do before due to the fear of their peers’ opinions and lack of self discovery. Things like buying jeans 5 sizes too big, wearing bandanas as shirts, and dying your hair half blonde and half black became a trend as remote students began to experiment.

Ella Kreidler, a senior, who went through a little style change, herself, over quarantine, says her style has become more “alt” throughout quarantine and she’s “gotten a lot more comfortable with taking more risks in [her] style and not being afraid of looking a bit different as long as [she] loves it.” 

Many other teenagers feel this exact same way. Without the fear of their peers’ opinions and fear of not fitting in, a lot were able to try new things that they wouldn’t try while they were in school. Madison Snyder, another senior who did sort of a style flip, said, “I truly don’t think I would have truly changed so much if we didn’t leave [school], I didn’t feel the pressure of my peers judging.” 

I know during quarantine some people set out to change themselves. They made it a plan to upgrade themselves and come out of quarantine looking unrecognizable. Other people, it kind of just happened. Then they looked back on pictures of them from January and were shocked that those were the same people. 

A lot of teens and young adults would probably all agree that Tik Tok aided them in that journey. So, during quarantine, Tik Tok became a place off, “quarantine glow up” and “quarantine fashion tips and tricks” videos. At this point, Tik Tok is kind of where every trend Gen Z partakes in, began. So, people ended up with a lot of fashion advice from Tik Tok, like Kreidler’s favorite tip was to buy men’s jeans from Walmart for only $11 for the perfect pair of baggy jeans. These jeans became very popular among girls over quarantine because of Tik Tok and definitely for a good reason because personally, I love them. 

Kreidler made it a point to let me know what the big thing she has learned about fashion over quarantine was. She said, “expressing myself through fashion isn’t about what other people find cool or attractive- it’s about what makes me feel good and that’s not always completely in line with what’s trendy at the time.” 

Snyder also said something very similar, she said, “I just try to have fun with it instead of forcing myself to, ‘fit in.’”  

Quarantine fashion was about being bold, untraditional, and confident. It turned fashion, for a lot of teenagers and young adults, into a huge part of their identity when previously fashion was just clothes we threw on to get to school in time. I’d say, as long as you came out of quarantine a little more confident than before, you can claim you’ve achieved quarantine fashion.