Country Club, Preppy, Quiet Luxury – fashion in the 2020s so far has been drenched in traditionalism, but data suggests a rising tide of rebellious creative styles moving in from the fringes of culture.

Our CultureOS analyses 1.5bn data points every day, tracking the terms and values gaining attention in culture.

• Cultural Attention to the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic has decreased by 89% since its peak in March 2024. 
• Cultural Attention to articles mentioning ‘preppy style’ dropped 48% in 2025.
• Cultural Attention to Decora increased 40% in the US 2025.
• Views of #gyaru increased by 2m week-on-week on Xiaohongshu in December 2025.

As any fashion historian knows, you can tell a lot about the mood of the times by looking at the clothes. 

Take Preppy, that resilient mix of midcentury collegiate staples and classic Americana that’s dominated the aesthetic of the ‘20s so far, influencing everything from Quiet Luxury to Normcore to Aime Leon Dore. Button-down shirts, tennis jumpers and penny loafers-a-plenty. 

As we explored in our 2024 article ‘The Style That Never Dies’, Preppy usually reappears in the mainstream in response to the wider socio-political climate. Its modern revival, germinated in the late 2010s by an exciting stable of streetwear-adjacent New York brands like Aime Leon Dore and Noah, accelerated rapidly as Gen Z began to take an unexpectedly romantic view of traditionalism, following years of Covid instability, growing economic problems and divided communities. 

The logic goes that when the ground beneath feels shaky and the future unsure, we tend to see trends which reflect young people attaching themselves to that which feels safe. Traditions. ‘Old fashioned values’. Timelessness. To some, this quite literally meant conservative politics. To others it was as simple as a pair of penny loafers and a country club membership. The same need expressed with different rituals and symbols. 

But the context feels different as we head into the second half of the decade. As new-wave conservatism finds some success in its fight for the Western cultural narrative, to some, styles like Preppy and Quiet Luxury have begun to feel less like a cosplay-version of elitist values and more like a knowing celebration of them. Our CultureOS data shows that attention to articles mentioning ‘preppy style’ decreased by 48% between 2024 to 2025. 

And as the creative fringes begin to respond to this new set of circumstances, data from our CultureLab Navigate tool points towards a coming value shift, with terms associated with subtlety and timelessness decreasing sharply in fashion and beauty culture since 2024. Clues to what might take their place are already emerging subtly.

Decora and Gyaru

If you put style on a spectrum of subtlety with Quiet Luxury, Preppy and Normcore at one end, at the other end, as far away as you could get without falling off the edge, would be Decora. 

Born on the streets of Tokyo’s Harajuku district in the 90s, Decora is an explosion of rainbow colour that takes maximalist dressing to its most extreme end. Think layers upon layers of beads, jewellery, makeup, clothes in every colour imaginable. Why wear one hairclip when you could wear 10 in different colours? Our CultureOS data shows CulturalAttention for Decora in the US increased 40% in 2025, compared with the previous year. And when cult Roblox game Dress to Impress introduced a Decora theme in late 2025, it sparked an all-time high for search traffic that seems to have sustained interest into 2026. 

Where Decora would once stop passers-by on the streets of Tokyo, today it commands attention on social feeds around the world. The online Decora community is thriving, with creators posting how-to videos, thrifting tips and language translations. Melbourne-based Ren aka @Onlysnailz is one such voice. Ren describes themselves as: “engaged with the Western Decora community and culture” and aims to “spread awareness about the culture and its history, and to dispel any misconceptions.” Speaking to CultureLab, Ren explained the appeal of the style: “I think the best part of Decora is that it is art. It goes beyond fashion and you become a canvas to express your interests, hobbies and colour palettes.” They attribute the rising interest to the neo Decora revival in Harajuku, and creators like @cybr.girl, who has over 5m followers. 

Decora is sometimes confused with another Japanese street-style movement, from a similar era but with different nuances and codes. Meaning gal in Japanese, Gyaru is all about 90s / 00s glamour excess. Think false eyelashes, furry boots and saccharine pastels, with styling cues taken from the US Hip Hop culture. Gyaru created a moral panic at the height of its popularity in the ‘90s, its rejection of traditional female beauty standards stoking fears of juvenile delinquency that had troubled post-war Japanese society. 

Fashion Substack has been alive with talk of a Gyaru revival over the past year. According to the FashionTingz newsletter, Gyaru was: “anti-minimalism before minimalism became a personality; anti-conformity in a culture that prized harmony.” 

Gyaru and Decora received modest attention outside of Japan during their original peaks, but their global re-emergence today is cultivated on shared cultural spaces like TikTok, Reddit and Xiaohongshu, where the hashtag #gyaru increased by 2m views week-on-week in December 2025, according to Jing Daily. 

The digital archiving of FRUiTS magazine can also be thanked for introducing vintage Tokyo street style to a global audience. Its instagram page has amassed 150k followers, and regularly features portraits of original Decora and Gyaru devotees. 

What does this tell us about culture?

It’s unlikely we’ll see mass adoption of Decora or Gyaru in the way Preppy has become revered, but we believe the rising interest does signify a growing need for bolder self-expression in fashion and beauty, which will continue as older Gen Alpha members come of age in the next five years. A creative fringe kicking back against the dominance of neutrality. 

We’re seeing it happen already. Dazed wrote about the emergence of blue hair as a political statement in January 2026, a middle finger to what some are now seeing as the conservative-coded toxic-wellness of the ‘clean girl’ era. We can see it in the data: CultureOS data shows overall impressions for the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic decreased by 89% from its peak in March 2024 to March 2026. 

Ren explains why wider appreciation of bold expressive styles make sense today: “Decora and Gyaru are a part of the alternative fashion umbrella, so there’s a sense of rebellion that comes with them. Decora especially is about the freedom of self expression, and when the ‘clean’ aesthetic is pushed as ideal, it leads to people who don’t vibe with that to find other communities. Decora has always been about rebelling against fashion standards and respectability politics.”

Thought Starters for Brands

• This shift from pared-back traditionalism to bold, colourful self-expression has implications beyond fashion and beauty. We’re already seeing sports players who embody those values growing in popularity, from tennis to football, and in music too. 

• The pandemic is retreating into memory as we enter the second half of the 20s. Have you thought about how your customers’ needs, attitudes and dreams have changed on a broad scale since then? Have you asked them? 

• Japan often gets left out of the nostalgia cycle, but Tokyo was uniquely vibrant in the ‘90s and ‘00s and its influence on modern culture is important to understand, stretching from fashion to tech. Are there any cultural blind spots relevant to your category’s history that would make for great storytelling? 

• Somewhere along the line monochrome became the default in modern product and brand design, but remember the colour and flair of the 90s and early 00s? People are craving that kind of optimism in their lives again.

To unlock more insights, email discover@culturelab.co 

[Main image: Ren @onlysnailz]

Sources: 

CultureLab CultureOS data – 2024-2026

Gyaru, Rewritten – fashiontingz.substack.com

The Blue Hair Renaissance is Here – Dazed 2025

Hello Kitty nails, knee-high fur: Gen Z Gyaru – Jing Daily, 2024

gyaru-109.fandom.com