This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Utah chapter.

In the last year or so, I’ve seen a spike in the number of articles entitled things like “Fashion Trends Men Hate” or “Hairstyles that Women Hate.” Upon first seeing them crop up in my Facebook feed, I was curious. Do I wear any of these hated trends? Looking back, I hate that this was my first reaction. As if I was going to clear out my closet according to some random writer on the internet. But I began to see more and more similar articles across all social media, and they all have one common theme: “If you are not sexually attractive (and that’s heterosexually attractive mind you), then you are doing something wrong.” Funnily enough, most of these articles give no source or reasons why men or women hate said trend. They simply leave it at, “They are worn by many women, even celebrities, however they are not liked by men,” or something similar.

The articles directed at women, supposedly written by men, were pretty aggressive (especially compared to those directed at men). The following are some comments from Askmen.com’s fashion editor, Sachin Bhola on trends, “women think are hot, but men think are not.”

On menswear-inspired clothing, “Well, finally, we’re getting what we always wanted: girls who look like boys.”
On neon colored lipstick, “The only time we’re happy to see you wearing fluorescent gunk on your face is when we stumble in at 4:30 a.m. … and use your Fanta-orange lips as our guide in the dark.”
On heels, “You may think looking like a giraffe is sexy, but all that’s doing is rubbing it in. And you wonder why we don’t approach your freakishly tall ass at the club.”
On lace, “We’re not sure if we should kiss you or help you cross the street.”

Other articles were less blunt and contained far less juvenile name-calling, yet they still trashed peplum for reminding men of maternity clothes, disparaged maxi skirts for not showing off our “amazing legs,” and told us to ditch the pantsuits because men feel that only they are entitled to wear them.

Flipping over to the “trends women hate” side, things get very interesting. Trends men hate covered basically every possible thing that a woman could wear from heels to flats and maxi dresses to pantsuits. However, the male trends that women supposedly despise are shockingly consistent from article to article. Across the first four articles from a Google search of “male trends women hate,” the following items were on every single list: deep v-necks, skinny jeans, socks with sandals, and short shorts. Other extremely common occurrences were excessive jewelry, vests, and cowboy hats. A huge difference between these articles was the tone of voice. Compared to the “men don’t like these clothes because it makes us want to f*ck you less” mentality of the trends men hate, the articles for men read more like “this is a general fashion faux pas and you should probably class it up a little.” Some even offered tips for matching a belt to a suit or had links to alternative pieces of clothing.

At the core, all of these articles have two major flaws. First, every single person on this planet has vastly different tastes. Not one article mentioned where they were getting the information on these hated trends. No surveys were done, no actual men and women were asked, and no research was done. Apparently these “contributors” aren’t aware that men don’t share one big hive mind when it comes to women’s fashion. Oh, and the women of the world didn’t get together at a men’s fashion summit to discuss our collective disliked trends. The second big issue is the assumed heterosexuality and cisgendering of literally everyone. The purpose of every single article revolves around being sexually attractive to the opposite sex. Some even carry taglines like, “What Not to Wear on a Date.”

Honestly, every single one of these articles is absolute bullshit and everyone, regardless of gender or sexuality should wear whatever goddamn piece of clothing their heart desires. Rock your brightest neon lipstick, embrace a deep-v, emulate power in a great pantsuit, show off your calves in some denim skinnies, just wear clothes that make you happy.

Trends Men Hate Sources:

https://www.pouted.com/top-20-fashion-trends-men-hate/

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/fashion-trends-men-hate

http://www.instylebeads.com/top-30-womens-fashion-trends-that-men-hate-the-most/

https://betches.com/6-fashion-trends-men-hate/

Trends Women Hate Sources:

https://www.providr.com/now/male-fashion-trends-women-hate/

https://www.thegentlemansjournal.com/article/5-male-fashion-trends-women-secretly-hate/

https://www.slikhaarshop.com/news/donts-9-things-men-wear-that-women-hate/

https://guff.com/most-women-hate-these-15-male-fashion-trends

Image Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4