At 11pm each Wednesday, you’d find me shivering outside the club, in my favourite peplum top, H&M jersey skirt, Henry Holland x Pretty Polly suspender tights and platform heels.
Who wants to waste time or money on the cloakroom? I’d have just relieved my bladder in the aptly named ‘Piss Bush’ after spending the long journey into town passing around a plastic water bottle filled with a potent mixture of vodka and squash.
This was the weekly routine. After playing Ring of Fire at pre-drinks, we’d head out into the night, ballet flats stuffed into our handbags, ready for an evening of trying to snog Jack O’Connell lookalikes on the dance floor. By 3am, full of cheesy chips, I’d be asleep, hours before my 9am shift at Topshop.
It was 2013, I was 21 years old and life was good. Today? Things are a little more complicated. I’d love to time-warp to who I once was, go back and live exactly as I did then... Is that even possible? I dug out the remnants of my past to find out...
I’m not alone in feeling nostalgic for the past. We’re in the grip of a 2000s revival. The peplum is back, while Google searches for ballet flats are the highest they’ve been for five years. I’ve even spied one brand selling denim leggings, aka jeggings – shudder.
Outside of our wardrobes, Big Brother is back on our screens and documentaries such as Peter Doherty: Stranger In My Own Skin hark back to the hedonistic 2000s indie scene – skull scarves and wet-look leggings essential. There’s even a film about the rise and fall of the Blackberry, the phone that had us all asking for each other’s BBM PINs. Meanwhile, over on TikTok, posts with the hashtag #2010 have more than 4bn views and counting.
Everyone's clicking on...
While style trends often flip back and draw inspiration from the past, our obsession with the 2000s right now could also be driven by something else. When I ask psychotherapist Sharnade George why I, and so many others, are harking back to the past, she notes that feelings of nostalgia can be triggered by difficult experiences. “Let’s face it, the past couple of years have been tough for many of us,” she says. “We’re still dealing with a cost of living crisis, rocketing energy prices and rising inflation. People wonder when this will stop. Nostalgia can be a way of coping with negative mental states, reaching back into your memory bank to comfort yourself.”
It’s a sentiment that resonates – when each scroll of my Instagram feed shows a new threat of genocide, another community displaced because of climate change, and hateful attacks on women, the queer and trans community, people of colour and disabled people, it’s hard to feel positive. Add the bin fire that is online dating (being ditched by a five-minute voice note after one date – can we not?) while friends the same age (I’m 31) are moving in with partners, getting married and having children. More and more friends are also moving out of London, unable to afford the capital, and keeping in touch consists of comparing antidepressants and sharing memes about our mental health.
But were those post-millennium years really all that great, or are we looking back with rose-tinted glasses? To put this to the test, I threw things back to 2013 and spent a week living like my 21-year-old self. That meant overhauling my wardrobe, ditching dating apps and swapping dinners with friends for supermarket pizzas and a glass of Malibu and Coke. Books, films, TV shows, music – if it wasn’t out by 2014, I didn’t want it. This week was a chance for me to immerse myself in the year of Miley Cyrus twerking on Robin Thicke and everyone doing the Harlem Shake, to see what lessons we could learn from back then – and what’s best left in the past.
Get the London look
As a certified Topshop girl from 2010 to 2015, the majority of my wardrobe was bought with a staff discount. This was the year of wet-look leggings, studded loafers and Kate Moss’s best-known range for the former high street giant. Jamie jeans were my go-to, with an imminent graduation to Jonis, alongside skull scarves and Jeffrey Campbell Lita boots.
My old garms don’t fit, so I place a Topshop order on Asos. A few days later, I’m back in 2013 as I pull on shiny black leggings, a gold lurex top and black ballet flats. A slick of Kate Moss for Rimmel red lipstick, then I dig out my old jewellery – skull rings and safety pin statement necklaces, with stacks of studded bracelets.
As I leave the house for a pint of Strongbow at my local Wetherspoons, the leggings and crop top leave me feeling exposed, even though it’s not a seismic change from the jeans and vest tops I wear today. I also get a blister from my new flats, and risk frostbite. Still, it feels freeing to dress like this, remembering a time when I was more confident in my body. I’d love to rock oversized mesh T-shirts with latex crosses over the nipples today (Ashish for Topshop, IYKYK), but I’m too conscious of my stomach and the completely normal bulge of skin under my arms.
The real shift comes the next day, when I pull on a black jersey miniskirt, sheer polka dot tights and my dad’s old band T-shirt. Finishing with some studded River Island loafers, I feel my whole personality change. The outfit takes me straight back to boozy nights in Brighton. For one moment, I’m not adult me, worried about mortgages and car payments. Instead, I’m light and hopeful. It might ‘just’ be an outfit, but the change in my perspective was palpable.
Recreating technology from the time is tricky. I was a Blackberry Curve 9300 girl, but the company shut down its mobile technology in 2022. I dig out some old Blackberry handsets, but they won’t turn on and, anyway, I have no idea how I’d type on those tiny keys with my 2024 manicure.
As for music, I still have an iPod – lucky, considering Apple discontinued the device in 2022. What I don’t have is wired headphones, meaning Muse, Mumford & Sons, and Rudimental stay stuck in my iPod. Enter, Spotify. As a diehard indie fan, my playlist featured the likes of Peace, Paramore and Arctic Monkeys’ AM. I also mix in some of the biggest songs of the year from Icona Pop, Calvin Harris, Ellie Goulding and Macklemore.
The sound feels different, more positive somehow. I don’t know if it’s the lyrics or just the memories of a time when gig tickets didn’t cost £90, but I’m smiling: 2013’s party music feels more shamelessly hedonistic and therefore easier to escape into – a welcome relief from bleak reality of living in 2024.
As for social media, in 2013, I mostly lived on Facebook, regularly updating my profile picture, and on Twitter I’d be creating random hashtags out of inside jokes. Instagram was still in its infancy, a time where we’d think nothing of uploading a fuzzy shot of our dinner and adding a black border to it. It wasn’t the carefully curated highlight reel it is now and, as such, out of all the challenges this week, changing the way I post is the most nerve-racking. As a journalist, my feed is my brand, and as a millennial, I just want it to look cool. But I dive in, posting a hazy picture of a toastie with the hashtag #MoreCheesePlease, dying inside as 23 likes roll in. Next up, a picture of my Topshop skull ring (#gothvibes.)
No one is concerned enough yet to ask me if I’m okay, so I kick things up a notch with a screenshot of the weather app (#GlobalWarming #WhereAreMySunglasses.) After this, friends start asking what’s up. The more I post (a selfie, my iPod and #TequilaWednesdays), the freer I feel – it’s a relief to not be so concerned about ‘engagement’. Moving platforms, I upload house party pictures to Facebook, like the good old days where 100-plus uploads from a digital camera would be stuffed into albums named ‘Zante 2013’ with the comment ‘Tag yourselves!’ My album receives a single solitary like. It’s been just over a decade since then, but it’s a stark reminder of how quickly things have changed and how much we’ve shifted our lives – and self-worth – into a digital world, with so much value placed there rather than on our actions in real life. I hadn’t realised how fatigued it was making me, until I had a reason to deliberately stop.
Up all night to get lucky
It takes 20 minutes and one serious pep talk, but I manage it. I’m telling a tattooed guy I spotted earlier that I find him attractive and asking him if he’s seeing anyone. His response? He’s polite, but he’s waiting in the bar for his girlfriend. Strangely, I don’t feel too stung by the exchange; more proud of myself for even trying. That’s because, lately, I’ve been swiping on Bumble, Tinder, Hinge and Feeld with little success – the work-to-reward ratio is deeply unsatisfying, with a lack of actual dates materialising from dead chat. I can’t help but compare myself with friends who seem to have new dates every week and wonder, ‘Why not me?’
Admittedly, this feeling isn’t much different to how I felt when I was 21. I’d just broken up with my first boyfriend and spent a lot of time weeping in my room to Damien Rice. Tinder had launched a year earlier, but dating mostly took place IRL and I found I was often disappointed on nights out when it was my friends who attracted attention. But, while I’m deeply nervous about moving back to that mindset, I’m pleasantly surprised to find that the more I chat people up, the better I feel about myself (before it was very much about waiting for people to approach me).
Unfortunately, single men are few and far between. There’s a near-miss in a coffee shop, an ‘I have a girlfriend’ at a networking event and a flirtatious exchange with a bartender (my current kryptonite), but no dice. Regardless, I end the week with a renewed sense of hope and the idea that apps might just not be for me. I’ve felt more confident and desirable in the past week than I have in years, taking the pressure off dating in favour of a less methodical approach. Taking control feels spontaneous and fun, plus I’m actually leaving my flat, rather than staring and swiping at a tiny screen for hours.
Saying that, organising weekday booze-ups and spontaneous pub trips is not an easy task. I used to love Sundays, when I’d get drunk on tequila until the early hours, but these days everyone’s busy, parenting or not in the same city any more, with plans now made months in advance.
To recreate my youth, I head out on a Wednesday, sipping rum cocktails until I realise I’m more buzzed than I thought. Tripping out the door, I make my way to McDonald’s – so far, so similar. The difference? The hangover the next day. At 21, I could power through my poor decisions. I once headed straight from the airport to a house party, drinking until 3am before an 8am shift at work the following morning. In 2024, my body is far less resilient and those rum cocktails haunt me until bedtime the next night.
Reality bites
My hangovers may be worse, but how I spend the day after is largely similar. It’s all about the sofa, a supermarket pizza and reality TV. But while the format is familiar, I’m surprised by how unpolished the shows of the time were. For example, 2013 saw the return of Made In Chelsea for season five and it was authentically chaotic, with Spencer cheating on Louise in her own bed!
Then there was (criminally underrated, in my opinion) Channel 4’s Party House. The series gave six groups of friends an empty mansion and the chance to throw a rager, filming all the break-ups and make-ups. My rewatch doesn’t disappoint – compared with today’s slick productions, Party House was messy, awkward and entirely relatable. Yes, it was staged, but the drama wasn’t played up for the cameras in the hope of sponsorship deals. People also looked hugely different to today’s Insta-ready faces; 2013 cast members had fewer fillers and no Turkey teeth – a refreshing reminder that not everyone naturally looks like today’s reality stars.
But, throughout my rewatching, I wince more than once. There are repeated references to people being ‘chubby’ and ‘fat’ or ‘sluts’. It brought back memories of the time that my nostalgia for the period had – briefly – wiped clean. Body-shaming was rife in 2013 – Jessica Simpson’s weight was scrutinised during her pregnancy and Kim Kardashian was called a ‘whale’. On the flip side, Ariana Grande, Kendall Jenner and Emma Stone were criticised for being ‘too skinny’. Don’t even get me started on those red ‘circles of shame’.
As for the nights out I look back on so fondly, nearly all of my friends remember being touched without consent, with the male gaze the central lens through which pretty much all mainstream media was viewed – from TV shows to lads’ mags. Some of the allegations of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse made against Russell Brand (allegations he denies) also relate to this period. While this behaviour was never okay, it was less challenged and Brand’s alleged actions were, according to one of his accusers, ‘an open secret’, with major companies accused of covering up for him, so as to keep him – and his star power – on their roster.
Politically, it was a mixed time. Barack Obama was being sworn in across the pond for a second term, yet here UKIP had success in local elections and there was a rise in racist and anti- immigrant sentiments in the UK. Still, 2013 was also the year the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act was passed in England and Wales, with Scotland following suit in 2014. Kate Middleton and Prince William’s royal baby meant the rules of succession were changed so they were no longer dependent on gender and the Irish parliament took a step towards 2018’s legalisation of abortion by allowing terminations when the mother’s life was at risk.
So, there was progress in 2013. And when I think back, I can remember a sense of hope that things were going in the right direction – something I rarely feel now. But it’s hard to view that period positively now, knowing what came next (Brexit, a cost of living crisis, etc) and reflecting on how much we let slide. Not because we didn’t want to fight against the injustice we could see, but because there wasn’t anywhere to place it. Today, our sense of community and the power to speak out have been reinforced by social media. There was also so much back then that 21-year-old me was privileged enough not to be fully aware of, but now my eyes are fully open and I can’t go back to ignorance and inaction.
Turning back the clock a decade reminded me how free my life used to be. However, it feels important to recognise now that this is probably more about my age at the time than the era itself. Without the pressures of bills, climbing the career ladder and my mental health, I could be more in the moment. But life has changed – I’ve experienced grief, friendships are more difficult to keep up and I have adult responsibilities. This past week has given me the chance to slow down and appreciate what I have, such as my own home, a car and a successful career – things I dreamed about when I was 21. I’m proud of the reputation I’ve earned as a compassionate friend and social justice advocate, so I vow to give myself more credit moving forwards.
While I won’t be sticking with yellow Instagram filters, I do want to keep up a less considered approach to posting and my dating apps will remain silent for the time being. The year 2013 might not have had all the answers, but for me it held an optimism that’s worth holding on to.
Isabella is a freelance journalist who has written on young women's issues, entertainment, TV and film, South Asian representation, mental health, dating and so much more. She has bylines in ELLE, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Prima, Digital Spy, Women's Health, and Harper's Bazaar, and was named 30 Under 30 by MediaWeek, PPA and We Are The City. She was also shortlisted for Workplace Hero at the Investing In Ethnicity Awards and Hero of the Year at the European Diversity Awards. Follow Isabella on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
