^yeah.
So I guess hipster regurgitation of former trends was the way to go last decade, although I do feel the "ironic" vibe was the main characteristic in the adoptions of these trends and ultimately what characterizes this last decade (see American Apparel and LA street style)
Absolutely.
I think we may be trying to focus too much on specific objects/brands in this thread when, even though some of them are true, when you look back at a decade through photographs, it's the finished result, the entire look and even attitude (posing, gesture, etc) what embody and emit a mood characteristic of a certain decade, looks that are assimilated by everyone as '2000s', not just those that were teenagers/young adults at that time..
For me, one of them was the hipster look
unspoiledbird mentioned, sponsored by the 1000-pictures-of-yourself networking sites, encouraging people to be more and more calculated and notorious in their clothing through irony/kitschy elements just to be photographed while contradictorily trying to pull off the don't-give-a-damn look (with a duck face of course).
[motheringhut]
and then of course, the vintage-devouring phenomenon that inspired countless collections, the 'boho' trend, the granny trend, et cetera.
what was a good tradition of some to dig out old and unique gems in the middle of the late 90s it-item craze, went on to become either a spectacle of real rags that are still as bad as they were when they were created or worse, trendy people piling up luxury brands for the sake of looking cheap and old but not in that French, carefree way, more like in that vulgar, Williamsburg trying-too-hard vibe.. wish I could post some lookbook pics but that would be rude
.
[thestylebar.blogspot]
Finally, one more thing that screams 2004-2006 to me is that '
I believe in fairy-tales/unicorns/Lula/cupcakes/wish I was a child/ I look really cute in the countryside' mood trend. It may not have been as openly bad as the two other ones I mentioned but over time, it became just as irritating and corny.. all the childlike imports, the ribbons, polka dots, cutesy little headbands and bad illustrators.. too abused and empty to the point it's now part of a year or two of a generation only.
[scans by alix*, style.com, verbalsnapshots at wordpress]