Things People Actually Found Attractive In The 1990s
Fashion trends of the '90s are finally coming back in style, but is that a good thing or a bad thing? It was an era of supermodels, grunge music, inflatable furniture, and the tiniest purses known to man. While that may sound glamorous and nostalgic now, some '90s beauty standards should stay dead and buried, along with our Pog collections and car phones. Those of us who grew up in the era remember trying to emulate Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell while bopping around our lilac-painted rooms listening to Britney Spears and *NSYNC — it was the best of times and it was the worst of times, especially when it came to what we found attractive.
Rooms were plastered with posters of Justin Timberlake and his ramen noodle hair and boy bands in oversized suits. And if you were "alternative," Kurt Cobain was king. We spent our days plucking our eyebrows to impossibly thin lines and hanging out at the mall trying to look cool eating a pretzel. Social media wasn't a thing, and though the dawn of the internet was looming, we were more obsessed with our own landlines than listening to dial-up tones.
Movies like "Cruel Intentions," "Clueless," and "She's All That" perpetuated the '90s teen stereotype, but we were there for it. Kids these days will never know how badly we wanted to snag a guy with curtain bangs or buy a new top at Aeropostale. Lord help us, here's what we found attractive in the '90s.
Heroin Chic
Over the past few years, there has been a big shift in body positivity in the entertainment industry. Jameela Jamil's inspiring podcast helped to change the narrative, as did Ashley Graham being — well — Ashley Graham. The tide is slowly turning, allowing women of all shapes and sizes to take center stage and feel good about themselves. However, it's been a long time coming. There's still a long way to go, but thankfully, we're not trapped in the '90s. Back then, supermodels were stick thin, and the Size 0 trend was on track to reach its peak in the '00s.
While we love and adore Kate Moss as much as the next pop culture stan, she was largely at the forefront of a movement dubbed "heroin chic." The aesthetic called for skin-and-bone frames, gaunt cheeks, and a devil-may-care attitude that generally felt as if one simply didn't give a damn and had just woken up from a raucous night out. Fashion magazines favored the look so much that it made any celebrity of a healthy weight seem a little less cool.
As former Cosmopolitan employee Atoosa Rubenstein told The Guardian in 2022, "I remember a new editor, Bonnie Fuller, came into Cosmo [in 1996] and put Jennifer Aniston on the cover. The fashion director was like, 'Ugh, she is so fat.' The fact that we thought Jennifer Aniston was fat is telling of that era."
Spending all day at the mall
These days, teenagers have access to a whole world of entertainment through their smartphones and TV streaming services. If they want to talk to their friends, they need only to send them a message on WhatsApp or Instagram. Back in the '90s, if you wanted to hang with your pals, you had to arrange a time and a date and hope they showed up. Of course, there was no cooler way to spend your day than to head down to the local mall and hang out — for eight hours. The mall wasn't just somewhere to go to spend your money, but the "It" destination for cool kids.
Want to increase your chances of seeing that boy you like? Head to the mall. Want to meet someone totally new? Chances are you'll lock eyes over a hot pretzel and spend the rest of the day following each other around, giggling from a distance. Anyone who was anyone went to the mall on the weekends, regardless of whether you actually had any cash to spend. Weirdly, it was all we wanted to do, and what we found attractive in a potential Homecoming date.
Now, the rise of online shopping has largely killed this once-beloved activity, with many stores closing down and some malls shutting entirely. Still, we'll always have the memories — and the overpriced photo booth snaps that lurk in our memory boxes.
The made-over nerd
Let's face it, there are multiple misogynistic '90s movie moments that'll make you cringe today. While we're still suckers for some classic gems, we can't say they weren't problematic. One of the biggest movie trends of the decade came in the form of the made-over nerd. In "She's All That," for example, Rachel Leigh Cook's character (pictured above) goes from being an unpopular art nerd to a bona fide high school queen, thanks to a bet made between the characters played by leading man Freddie Prinze Jr., both of whom are jocks. With a swift haircut, a new dress, and some contact lenses, Cook's character is suddenly worthy of attention, causing all the boys to fawn over her.
The same plotline unfolded in other popular movies of the decade, including "Cruel Intentions" and "Clueless." We just couldn't get enough of this rags to riches plotline, but what's worse is that we didn't really identify it as problematic. The idea appealed to everyone and perpetuated the stereotype that being smart and dedicated to a hobby other than cheer or sport wasn't "cool."
Better to have a date than to be overly invested in one's future, right? Sadly, this movie and subsequent cultural trend took a while to die out. Even Sandra Bullock hopped onto it for 2000's "Miss Congeniality."
Curtain hair
No discussion of '90s attractive traits would be complete without the mention of the Holy Grail of haircuts — the curtains. There was nothing we liked to see more in our potential love interests than a head full of highlighted tresses majestically parted. All of the teen heartthrobs at the time rocked curtains at one point or another, from The Backstreet Boys' Nick Carter (many years before the heartbreaking death of Aaron Carter) to "Dawson's Creek" star James Van Der Beek. It was the epitome of chic. Girls wanted to run their hands through it, and guys wanted to wear it.
As the '90s moved on, curtains were left behind for good (or so we thought), but thankfully for us, photos never die. It may not have been as popular as Jennifer Aniston's famed "Rachel" cut, but it wasn't a quick fad, either. In fact, this style left such a mark on fashion culture that it's still talked about today — and even, dare we say it, emulated.
Over the past couple of years, the curtain hairstyle has appeared in the unlikeliest of places. British soccer star Jack Grealish sported the look during the Euro 2020 tournament, perhaps aiming to recreate David Beckham's famous '90s aesthetic. Still, let's hope this is just a passing trend and not a total resurgence! There's only so much we can take when it comes to throwback fashion.
Boys in oversized suits
Tailoring is important, kids, but in the '90s, no one gave a hoot. The only suit to wear was an oversized suit, whether you were in a boy band or going to prom. Whatever the occasion, if the suit wasn't at least three sizes too big for you, it wasn't worth your time. The only people who dared to care about anything so passé as tailoring were Wall Street squares or school principals — and they weren't landing any magazine covers. If you wanted to make an effort for a date, then a shirt with an oversized collar was essential, too.
Even women were getting in on the trend, with icons like Julia Roberts wearing oversized blazers out in public. Roberts even wore an oversized men's suit to the 1990 Golden Globes. The Giorgio Armani number went down in history as one of Roberts' most recognizable awards season looks, but — and as much as we hate to say it — this was definitely a trend that in hindsight, flattered women more than it did men.
Regardless of how we may feel about these looks now, back in the '90s, it was the crème de la crème of fashion. If your date rolled up to our house in one of these (usually mismatched) suits, you swooned your way through the evening, secure in the knowledge that they must really liked you. Nowadays, we'd expect a teeny bit more effort.
The entire grunge aesthetic
In the early '90s, a whole new wave of music took over the world. Bands like The Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Hole, and Soundgarden spearheaded grunge, giving angsty teens across the globe something to thrash to. With that came a new look that can largely be described as "unclean." The preppiness of the '80s was gone. Here were flannel shirts, ripped pantyhose and jeans, smudged makeup, and what can only be described as an unusual scent, which we were obsessed with despite our better judgment.
Elements of this alt look still thrive today (we even created the ultimate guide to achieving a trendy grunge aesthetic). Kurt Cobain was one of the biggest icons of this era, becoming an unwitting fashion icon just as much as he became a rock legend. There was something appealing and unassuming about a guitar-wielding skinny man with unwashed hair in his grandpa's cardigan, something we couldn't get enough of — it just worked. However, according to Courtney Love, Cobain had no idea what he was doing (via The Standard): "I remember, we were lying in bed and opened The New York Times to see 'fashion' pictures of him splashed across the paper. We were both amazed. Kurt didn't get it. He'd always shied away from anything to do with fashion, and it freaked him out."
Even after Cobain's untimely death in 1994, grunge lived on, though no one ever did it better than the Nirvana frontman no matter how hard they tried.
Frosted tips
Let's set the scene: It's a summer Saturday. Your hair is freshly highlighted with Sun-In, and you're walking through the mall wearing the new skort your mom picked out from Hot Topic. Suddenly, you lock eyes with a stone-cold fox, his spiky frosted-tip hair glinting in the fluorescent lighting as he pulls up his oversized jeans. Is this love, or did you just inhale too much of the free perfume at Bath & Body Works? Curtains were one thing, but frosted tips were how you knew they were really worth it. After all, if Freddie Prinze Jr. did it, then it must've been cool, right?
Many celebrities rocked this look throughout the '90s, including Justin Timberlake and Brad Pitt. The style, which usually required bleaching just the tips of your hair and using an extraordinary amount of gel to stand it up on end, was everywhere. Suddenly, all the boys looked like Sonic the Hedgehog, and as much as we're pained to admit it, we loved it. It didn't matter if you were a boy band member or just a regular high school kid. If you had the tips, you'd better frost them!
We know much better now, but that hasn't stopped the style from making a comeback. In 2017, The New York Post ran an article with the headline, "Frosted tips are back and everything is terrible," and British GQ doubled down on this sentiment in 2022, saying, "Watch out! Frosted tips are making a comeback."
Brown lipstick and super pale skin
Makeup trends in the '90s were varied and plentiful. At one point, colorful gel eyeshadow was the biggest thing on earth, as were hair mascara and painfully thin brows. There are some old-school makeup trends that are making a comeback, but some have remained firmly in the past. Brown lipstick was one of the decade's biggest trends, and while there's certainly something to be said for it in the modern beauty world, the '90s just did it differently. Numerous high-profile celebrities at the time wore deep brown lips that simply washed them out, including Katie Holmes and Drew Barrymore.
Whether it was a reddish hue or a color akin to mud, these vampy lip shades were everywhere, usually coupled with pale skin. Our color palettes might be a little more sophisticated now, which is why some influencers are able to balance out a brown lip with a smoky eye or a suitably contoured cheek. Back then, what we knew about makeup started and ended with the girl at the counter at Kohl's, so you can imagine how emulating these celeb looks went.
It wasn't unusual to go into the school restroom at lunchtime and wipe the lipstick from your teeth in a mortified hurry. And still, it didn't stop us from feeling like we were the coolest, chicest, most on-trend gals in town.
Smoking
In this day and age, smoking a cigarette seems uncouth. We're so much more educated on it than we were in decades past, and younger generations are less inclined to pick it up in the first place. In the '90s, we were well aware of what smoking did to us, but we just didn't care as much. It seemed like everyone who was even remotely cool smoked. All the A-listers, especially Johnny Depp and Kate Moss, were regularly seen with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths. Musicians like Kurt Cobain and actors like River Phoenix all indulged. Somehow, it completed the look, becoming part of the aesthetic.
As a result, smoking fell firmly under the category of cool. Now, smoking is often a reason not to date someone. Dating apps ask you whether or not you smoke, giving users the chance to swipe left if they don't want to risk inhaling your secondhand fumes. Esquire's Simon Hill put it best when he said, "In 2021, smokers are regarded as bad influencers, but in previous decades they were cover stars, rock stars, Soho blades, record company tyros, movie directors, Primrose Hill yummy mummies."
There were many things we couldn't afford in the '90s that took us one step closer to looking like the stars we desperately wanted to be, but bumming a cigarette under the bleachers wasn't one of them. And if someone you liked spotted you puffing away? Even better — your street cred just went up by 100.
Spending a Friday night at a video rental store
Turning on your TV and instantly streaming a vast quantity of movies and TV shows is so second nature to us these days that even those of us who lived through the Blockbuster era can barely remember it. Believe it or not, spending an evening down at the video rental store was the highlight of a Friday evening. You could spend an eternity poring over which VHS you wanted to rent, only to take the empty box to the cashier and find out someone else had already rented it. But renting a video was more than getting your entertainment fix for the weekend figured out — just going to the store was part of the entertainment.
This wasn't a throw-on-your-pajamas moment — '90s TV characters with the most iconic fashion wouldn't have dared to show up to the rental store wearing just any old thing, so why would we? Just like going to the mall, this was a weekly event. You were almost certain to bump into someone you knew, whether it was your crush or even your teacher. These were hangout spots, where you could spend hours chatting with your friends and mulling over what movie to choose without feeling rushed. It boosted your cool factor by a 1,000.
Sadly, the rise of streaming services put an end to these sacred spaces. Out of 9,000 former locations, there's only one Blockbuster Video that still exists, situated in Bend, Oregon.