I recently reached a milestone with my 11-year-old daughter, Ruby, when she asked: "Mom, do you have any bangles?" Few things make you feel cooler when your kid wants to borrow from your closet.
Rarely do I find myself in the company of celebrities like Sienna Miller and Gwyneth Paltrow, but they are two who have also recently imparted their style to their daughters. Last month, Miller's 14-year-old, Marlowe Sturridge, walked a red carpet with a Chloé Paddington bag, a staple of 2000s-era boho chic that Miller has also worn. At another recent event, Paltrow's 22-year-old, Apple Martin, sported a sleek black Calvin Klein dress that her mom wore on a red carpet in 1996.
Luckily, my work as a stylist gives me a business purpose for hoarding. Currently filling Ruby's wish list are staples from decades past that had been gathering dust in my closet. Common wisdom says that trends come back every 20 years. Judging from some of Ruby's choices, we're right on time. She has been in the market for longline tank tops, low-rise jeans and statement jewelry like bangles, some of which have lately become more popular outside my household as well.
Big bangles
Ruby and I like to watch the original 2007 "Gossip Girl" together, and the female characters are all overly accessorized. "I wish people still dressed like this," Ruby, a would-be Serena van der Woodsen, lamented.
Some do: Chunky bangles returned to the runways of Chanel, Ferragamo and Tory Burch in recent seasons, and celebrities have also been sporting them, including Bella Hadid and Zoë Kravitz, who wore hers halfway up the arm.
My daughter is also now among the bangle brigade. She layers my vintage pieces: Her favorite mix is a celluloid jadeite style with two resin bangles featuring hand-painted flowers and tiny rhinestones. Ruby's interest in statement accessories hasn't stopped there. She's also been asking for necklaces, belts, brooches, headbands and skinny rocker scarves.
Ponchos
I'll never forget Ruby's first reaction to seeing the reversible Piazza Sempione poncho I've held onto for years. "I feel like I'm apple picking in a rom-com," she said.
Whether worn over the body, off the shoulder or as an open cloak, ponchos have a certain panache. Ruby has taken to wearing them with a denim mini skirt and tall Ugg boots.
Target's recent capsule collection with the Y2K-era retailer Delia's included a maroon poncho, along with chokers and babydoll dresses. The line mixed trends from the 1990s through the 2010s.
Alejandra LaPilusa, who styled the campaign for the collection, said the point was to highlight how people associate clothes with different references. "That's what makes this particular moment in fashion so fun," she added.
Low-rise jeans
My daughter refuses to wear high-waisted pants -- she says they're uncomfortable. Now I feel masochistic every time I zip myself into tight mom jeans, which I wear way more than the low-rise pair from Diesel that Ruby has been asking me to pull from the depths of my drawers.
I am a millennial and, like others in my generation, low-rise jeans conjure the years before "body positivity" entered the lexicon. Yeni Fichtenbaum, a 46-year-old CPA and mother of two, felt similarly watching her 11- and 13-year-old daughters browse the jeans when they went back to school shopping.
Fichtenbaum's kids, like Ruby, are not as tortured by them as their elders. "When a pair of pants doesn't fit, they blame the pants not their body," Fichtenbaum said.
Longline tops
My old tops that extend past the hip always remind me of shows like "The O.C." and "Laguna Beach," two that Ruby hasn't discovered (yet). But she has become a fan of longline tanks.
As the stars of those shows did, Ruby layers lace-trim camisoles to achieve a color-blocked look. But she prefers more muted versions than the jewel tones and prints of decades past. Those, to borrow a phrase from Ruby, are chopped.
She often wears longline tanks with low-rise jeans, which is also how Elle Barnes, my friend's 15-year-old daughter, styles them.
Barnes tailors other oversize shirts -- tees she finds at thrift stores or in her dad's closet -- to be narrower while keeping the length. "We had to hide the scissors for a while," her mom, Nia MacKnight, a 37-year-old photographer and educator, said with a laugh.
Sporty leather jackets
On one of our recent thrifting adventures, Ruby spotted an olive green leather jacket with a gray hoodie built-in. In college, I would wear a soft dove gray leather motorcycle jacket over my Sarah Lawrence zip-up, feeling very tough. The only reason I don't still have that jacket is because I wore it to smithereens. Ruby said the one she found made her feel like a "pop star in the 2000s, like Britney Spears."
Biker and bomber jackets are in the tradition of "indie sleaze" -- the look defined by the music and underground party scene in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
Thankfully, Ruby's attempts at edginess are innocent and more like playing dress up. Plus, she's only wearing the jackets to school.