YOUR CLOTHES AREN’T TRENDY ANYMORE: NOW WHAT?

Here’s a fun little experiment: have you seen this top before?

Chances are that you probably have. It’s the Easy Satin Tie Babydoll Top from one of my favorite brands ever: Hollister. Even if you don’t have TikTok, you’ve probably spotted this shirt everywhere in the summer of 2025. Back then, the teenage girls’ rabid quest (me included) for 2000s babydoll tops in Goodwill bins and on secondhand sites like Depop (where prices surged up to $200+) had come to a sudden halt when Hollister released its newest line of babydoll tops. 

With shorter sleeves and bulkier shaping, they’re not exactly like the vintage ones, but they’re heaven-sent nonetheless. I was getting nauseous from scrolling through the hundreds of reseller listings online. It was never in my plans to buy the vintage ones anyway; they’re too pricey, and I was satisfied with admiring them through a screen. But with Hollister’s new release, I had an opportunity to finally have my very own babydoll top.

So I went for it. Maybe all of this sounds really dramatic for a piece of clothing, but I was in love. She’s beautiful with itty bitty white polka dots against the baby pink fabric, and the satin tie is the cherry on top. I have a pink bra with flower straps that’s perfect with it, and paired with my most adorable white tiered miniskirt, I felt like a shimmery glittery dewdrop fairy princess. 

Here’s the glaring problem: this is not in the summer of 2025 anymore. 

Currently, in the fall of 2026, batwing tops, capris, and sandals dominate UC Berkeley’s campus fashion scene, and I haven’t seen a babydoll top for a good while. Wait, no, that’s not true — babydoll sweaters still seem to be in. Along with the henleys and lace camis that all blew up together from our nostalgia-driven attempt to live out The Vampire Diaries and Twilight. Whip out your pumpkin spice lattes and Ugg boots, because it’s that season of the year. 

But what ever happened to the good ol’ cloth babydolls? I’m no fashion major, so I don’t have a satisfying answer. I’m fairly certain that I’m even calling the fabric by the wrong name (I meant cloth babydoll tops as in T-shirt/non-knit material, but I sadly don’t possess the vocabulary for it). All I know is that the fashion gods, for reasons that I may never know, have declared my cute pink babydoll top as out of style. In 2026, it belongs in a landfill. Or deep in a Goodwill bin until someone digs it out 20 years later.

Funnily enough, when I first got the top, I was a little anxious about going out and bumping into someone wearing the same thing, precisely because of how popular it was then.

Then I’d thought: isn’t it kind of sweet that us girls (and all fashion loving babes), even though we’ve never met before, had the same experience of falling in love with a top and taking it home? It’s like our secret language. And this top is a capsule of our shared love, the perfect capture of the zeitgeist of 2025 girlhood.

“This top is a capsule of our shared love, the perfect capture of the zeitgeist of 2025 girlhood.”

But that can’t be all that my top is. Sure, it’s special symbolically, but it’s still a piece of fabric lying in my closet. Donating or selling it online might sound like a good idea, but I have no control over its fate once the clothes are out of my hands.

A study conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2018 found that 85% of used clothes and textiles end up in landfills or are incinerated. That’s 14.5 million tons of clothes. 

Additionally, a large portion of textile waste is shipped to the Global South, and landfills are 2.8 times more likely to be in regions with a high percentage of BIPOC residents. Canadian scholar Max Libroiron’s 2021 book Pollution is Colonization is a good read for those that want to learn more about waste colonialism.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “Hmm, who are you to talk about sustainability when you literally buy from Hollister? Isn’t that a fast fashion brand? Isn’t that just as bad with its exploited workers and the carbon footprint?” You are 100% right.

Unfortunately, I’m a contributing member of a widespread problem: according to researchers at Sheffield Hallam University, although 94% of Gen Z respondents believed that sustainability should be supported, 62% of them also shop fast fashion monthly. They also found that the main barriers to sustainable shopping include price and lack of knowledge. 

But these barriers shouldn’t be an excuse for not trying harder. We should never be bound by our environment’s restrictions, because then we’ll just be giving in. I’m berating myself too as I type this. I haven’t bought from fast fashion for a couple of months now, and although I get FOMO when I go shopping with my friends knowing that I won’t be taking anything home, I still think it’s worth it. 

But what now? What do we do with our existing fast fashion clothes that are no longer trendy? Do we swallow the bad taste in our mouths, turn our backs on the environment and toss them in the trash, promising to never fall for a trend again? Should we hide them in our closets and not think about it until they’re all bitten up by moths? 

Or should we just keep wearing them?

I still get a little shy when I wear my babydoll top out. I keep feeling like someone’s going to look at me and think “oh my god she’s wearing that last season shirt that nobody wears anymore.” But when I look in the mirror and take in my outfit, I fall in love all over again. Urgh, it’s such a cute top.

And honestly, even if you seriously start to hate your clothes, there’re so many other good solutions! Up-cycling is super fun, and the tutorials on TikTok and YouTube range from non-sewing beginner level to professional. If you have siblings, they might be willing to take over your hand-me-downs. You can even cut up the fabric to use as cleaning rags! The ideas are limitless.

• college
• fashion
• health
• sustainability
• UC Berkeley