From Snapchat’s dog ears to discovering Eleven could be more than a number, and one iconic Celebrity Big Brother series, 2016 was a glorious year. Fast forward to now and we’re jumping in our time machines (aka scrolling down to the beginning of our social media profiles) to remind ourselves of just how good we had it back then – and relive it.
Thanks to a huge new trend across social media, fashion and pop culture 2026 has been declared the new 2016. TikTok has found that searches for “2016” went up a whopping 452 percent last week and millions of videos have been made using the app’s 2016 rose-tinted filter. Yes, I too felt geriatric when I learnt that 2016, which feels like four years ago, has a filter to give it that retro feel. But people in their millions (literally) are TikTok-ing and Instagramming their throw-back pics from a decade ago.
I’m talking dark eyebrows and concealer covering the majority of the face in your Valencia-filtered selfies on newly-launched Instagram stories, bottle flips and mannequin challenges. And fashion was thriving.
You could buy your second-skin Joni skinny jeans from a Topshop store, choker necklaces finished off any outfit and shrobing your duster-style trench coat made you feel like an A-lister.
Elsewhere, in music, Spotify has reported that there has been a 71 percent increase in 2016 playlists in 2025 compared with the previous year. Think Beyoncé’s Lemonade album, Justin Bieber’s Sorry and Drake’s One Dance all blasting through your stringed headphones.
We’re also feeling nostalgic about some of pop culture’s biggest moments of that year. Taylor Swift still had an almighty girl-squad, we were first introduced to D&D playing kids on their bicycles in Stranger Things, Leonardo DiCaprio finally got his Oscar and Kim and Kanye were America’s answer to Charles and Diana. But before we do hail it a heroic year, let us also remind ourselves it was the time that Kim Kardashian was traumatically robbed at gunpoint during Paris Fashion Week.
And while we were all laughing along (and still do on the anniversary of the iconic moment) to Tiffany Pollard’s “David’s dead” reaction, in reponse to Angie Bowie telling her her ex-husband David Bowie had passed, David Bowie had actually died. Sadly that year saw the passing of other legends like actress Carrie Fisher, boxer Muhammad Ali and musical genius Prince.
Other historical events made headlines in 2016: Brexit and Donald Trump‘s first presidency, the Zika virus and the terror attack in an Orlando nightclub.
In other aspects of life, skinny culture was rife. Not only were skinny jeans the must have trousers and crop-tops a must but the Victoria’s Secret Show was still a skinny spectacle and every A-to-Z-lister did an advert for diet drink, Bootea.
So why are we so nostalgic for 10 years ago?
Well, the internet didn’t feel like such a big, bad beast back then. You could just get shown people you followed, algorithms didn’t follow you as much as they do now and the idea of doomscrolling hadn’t been thought of. Everything on our feeds felt more personalised and posting a picture of your breakfast couldn’t be mistaken for a political statement.
Also, thinking about so-called simpler times like 2016 takes us back to when the idea of a global pandemic and AI was something reserved for sci-fi movies. Now we’re in a time where we’re craving comfort and stability and nostalgia gives us that warm and fuzzy feeling of ‘once upon a time things were good, so maybe they can be again. . .’ And hey – who can blame us?
But instead of dusting off the drainpipe jeans or getting ready to slip back into a crop top, let’s give the 2016 trends a welcome update, as sadly, not only have the trends aged, we have too. Skinnies should be straight and more timeless, whilst a luxurious knit is a welcome alternative to belly-baring. And nylon bomber jackets should be swapped with leather or suede versions that are much classier – and less flammable.
Now we’re coming from a more mature ten years on, looking back at over-filtered snaps and laughing at how naive we were, let’s not make those mistakes again. That said, if we can go back to a time when uploading something to social media didn’t require a degree in editing, then sign me up.
Clemmie Fieldsend has worked at a number of newspaper brands and is the former fashion editor of a national newspaper. She has over 17 years of experience commenting, writing and styling fashion and celebrity photoshoots. Clemmie reports on current fashion news, trends and hot takes across the celebrity and style stratosphere in both digital and print publications. She can decode trends to make them wearable, will forever be chasing the perfect pair of jeans and has an unreasonable hatred of rucksacks.
