Pop Punk Has Made Its Way Back Into the Fashion Scene—Here's Why

We all know for a fact that pop punk is most certainly not a new genre. Even if it wasn't exactly your music taste, you probably have some memory of Paramore, Green Day, or Avril Lavigne lyrics stuck in the back of your head. It's the cycle of the industry for things to come back around, except this time, it's artists like Willow Smith and Olivia Rodrigo who are singing the tunes fueling your adult, not teenage, angst. Similar to the 2000s (and the '80s punk period before that), fashion has always been heavily influenced by the music industry.

It may be 2021, but many of the current trends are eerily similar to Mary-Kate Olsen's style in New York Minute (Hello, Simple Plan video shoot. Remember?) and Lindsay Lohan's in Freaky Friday. It makes sense since the punk-esque characters in both films were chasing musical dreams. While one side of fashion may be pulling Y2K inspiration from Regina George, I know where the other side is drawing from.

With couples like Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian or Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox, there's one thing that's clear—pop punk has merged once again onto red carpets, street style, and even high fashion. While designers such as Vivienne Westwood are considered legends with the aesthetic at the core of their brand identities, many brands are trying to follow suit. Chanel even joined in (yes, you read that right) and sent a variety of grunge looks down its Cruise 2022 runway, taking a far step away from its usual tweed-and-posh glamour. Below, we show how celebrities, designers, and influencers are taking pop-punk style into the new decade.

On the Runway

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(Image credit: Handout/Getty Images)

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(Image credit: Courtesy of R13)

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(Image credit: Courtesy of Dion Lee)

On Celebrities

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(Image credit: @kourtneykardash)

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(Image credit: @willowsmith)

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(Image credit: Getty Images)

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(Image credit: @oliviarodrigo)

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(Image credit: Getty Images)

On the Fashion Set

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(Image credit: @nawalsari)

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(Image credit: @alwaysjudging)

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(Image credit: @alexandra.hildreth)

Shop the Aesthetic

Next: The WWW Summer 2021 Playlist (Featuring Matching Outfits, of Course)

Associate Fashion Editor
Yusra Siddiqui is an editor who resides in New Jersey but bounces between the suburbs and NYC. (She's a Jersey girl at heart.) After interning at Who What Wear in 2019, she found her way to the team after graduating from LIM College in 2022 with a fashion media degree. She's also spent time writing and working for publications such as Fashionista, Coveteur, and Nylon, but she always knew that Who What Wear was where she was meant to be. When she's on the job, she's perusing runway shows, analyzing the latest thing fellow Gen Zers are up to on the internet, and sharing what she can about the modest-fashion market. You can also catch her dabbling in entertainment, talking about the costume choices of the latest Netflix series or diving deeper into how the plotline affects the viewers in a myriad of ways. Lastly, she likes to create content for Who What Wear's TikTok. Her personal time is spent doing similar but also different things—deep diving into almost every new TV show (Bridgerton, Gilmore Girls, and Stranger Things are favorites), planning her next local getaway (whenever that may be), and reading the latest Emily Henry or Sally Rooney novel in one sitting.