I was rifling through my mom’s closet last month during a weekend visit to Brooklyn when I stumbled across her fanny pack collection—yes, collection. Not one or two, but a drawer full of practical nylon pouches in various shades of beige, black, and—God help us—one in a particularly aggressive floral print that screamed 1994 family trip to Disney World. “Mom,” I called out, dangling a particularly offensive burgundy specimen between two fingers like I’d found a dead mouse. “What is this archaeological treasure trove?”
She poked her head in from the hallway. “Oh, those? They’re handy! I keep one in every coat. You never know when you need your hands free.”
I almost launched into my well-rehearsed lecture about structured crossbody bags—my personal obsession since I maxed out a credit card on a mini Polène last fall—but the words died in my throat. Because, well… shit. I’d just spent $285 on almost the exact same thing at the Bottega Veneta sample sale (not a real sample, mind you, just slightly discounted retail that made me feel marginally less financially irresponsible).
The truth slapped me harder than the time I wore white linen pants to a standing-room-only show during a New York summer. Mom fashion—the very aesthetic I’d spent my formative years running from—has become not just acceptable but downright cool.
I’ve watched this transformation happen in real time, sitting front row as Gen Z (those terrifying creatures born after 1996 who think skinny jeans are “cheugy” and center parts are non-negotiable) have embraced what we once considered the universal symbols of giving up: comfortable shoes, high-waisted everything, practical bags, and—yes—even the dreaded fanny pack, now rebranded as the much sexier “belt bag.”
Last Tuesday, I was grabbing coffee at that impossibly hip place in Williamsburg—you know, the one with the baristas who look like they moonlight as indie band drummers—when I counted no fewer than seven belt bags on impossibly cool twentysomethings. Leather ones from Coach slung across chests rather than waists, Lululemon’s everywhere version paired with leggings and massive hoodies, even a vintage Gucci that I’m pretty sure was actually from the 90s rather than “inspired by” them. The girl wearing it couldn’t have been more than 19, which means she wasn’t even alive when her accessory of choice was first considered fashionable.
This generational fashion amnesia is nothing new, of course. I’ve watched enough trend cycles to know everything returns eventually (though I’m still waiting for someone to explain the low-rise jeans resurgence—some things should stay buried). But what’s different about this mom-style renaissance is that Gen Z isn’t just recycling these looks—they’re completely rebuilding them, adding their own cultural context that transforms the practical into the political.
Take “mom jeans”—once the punchline of an SNL skit, now the silhouette of choice for everyone from Bella Hadid to that cool barista with the septum piercing. I remember my mother’s Levi’s 550s, the ones she’d wear while gardening or running errands, always paired with those chunky white sneakers I found mortifying as a teenager. Now I’m paying $230 for virtually identical pairs from RE/DONE, and styling them almost exactly how she did—though I call my sneakers “dad shoes” and pretend the irony somehow makes them different.
The chunky shoe renaissance still baffles me sometimes. I have vivid memories of my mom’s orthopedic-looking white New Balance sneakers, purchased strictly for “arch support” (two words guaranteed to make any fashion-obsessed teenager die inside). She wore them everywhere—school drop-offs, grocery shopping, even to casual dinners with friends. I would rather have walked barefoot across burning coals than be seen in public wearing anything resembling them.
Cut to last month when I found myself dropping a frankly embarrassing amount on the New Balance 530s after seeing them on approximately every cool girl in New York. “They’re different,” I explained to Emma over brunch, as she raised an eyebrow at my feet. “These are… fashion sneakers.” She just laughed and pointed out they looked exactly like the ones her mother wears for power walking.
She wasn’t wrong. But here’s the thing about the Gen Z interpretation of mom style—it’s weirdly liberating. There’s something almost revolutionary about a generation of young women embracing comfort and practicality without feeling like they’re sacrificing style or, more importantly, sexuality.
I had dinner with Tara Johnson last week—you know, that insanely talented Gen Z designer who’s making waves with her upcycled vintage pieces. She showed up in what my mother would have called her “good gardening outfit”: loose jeans, a boxy button-up shirt, chunky loafers, and yes, a fanny pack (though hers was vintage Prada). Her hair was pulled back in a simple claw clip—another relic of mom styling that’s made a stunning comeback.
“I don’t understand why anyone ever thought looking comfortable meant you couldn’t look hot,” she said, dunking sourdough into olive oil with complete disregard for the carb-fearing culture I grew up in. “The whole ‘beauty is pain’ thing seems so… I don’t know, patriarchal?”
That’s the fundamental difference, I think. Where my generation (elder millennial, thank you very much) saw mom fashion as giving up, Gen Z sees it as a reclamation. The loose jeans aren’t about hiding your body—they’re about freeing it. The practical bags aren’t admitting defeat to the demands of life—they’re accommodating those demands without compromise.
This shift became crystal clear last fashion week when I watched a parade of Gen Z influencers outside the Maryam Nassir Zadeh show, all sporting some variation of the mom uniform: oversized blazers over simple white tees, loose-fitting jeans or trousers, comfortable shoes, minimal makeup, and—the clincher—tote bags overflowing with actual stuff. Not the pristine, empty designer totes of influencers past, but bags with water bottles and notebooks and lip balm and whatever else they needed for the day.
My mother would have approved, though she’d be confused by the price tags. When I called to tell her about my revelation, she just laughed.
“Honey, you never listened when I told you those shoes would hurt your feet,” she said. “Had to hear it from TikTok, huh?”
There’s something wonderfully cyclical about it all. The fashion choices my mother made for purely practical reasons—the ones I rejected as hopelessly uncool—have been embraced and elevated by a generation that somehow figured out what my mother knew all along: style doesn’t have to hurt.
Does this mean I’ll be returning the impractical mini bag that barely fits my phone, let alone my life? Absolutely not. But I did borrow one of Mom’s fanny packs last time I was home. It was the floral one, naturally—the most embarrassing of the bunch. I wore it across my chest with a vintage Jean Paul Gaultier dress to a gallery opening in Chelsea.
Three people asked where I got it. I told them vintage Etsy and silently apologized to my mother for the years I spent criticizing her practical choices. Turns out she was a fashion visionary all along. She just had to wait for Gen Z to prove it.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to call my mom and ask if she still has those “ugly” Birkenstock clogs I made fun of in 2004. If Gen Z hasn’t discovered those yet, they will soon, and I’d like to be ahead of the curve for once.
