Young consumers can’t stop “retro-gazing”—and brands are continuing to feed their nostalgia.

Young consumers can’t stop “retro-gazing”—and brands are continuing to feed their nostalgia. The gen has acquired a new taste for old favorites and even luxury brands (Coach, Gucci, Balenciaga, and more) are targeting their love of childhood cartoons on shirts/handbags and Y2K velour tracksuits. Social media is fueling the #Nostalgia craze (the hashtag has 41.2 billion views on TikTok) but Gen Z is essentially hardwired for looking back thanks to the internet giving them instant access to trends and content from any era and with platforms like Facebook and Snapchat providing memory features. For nostalgia to work best, brands need to tap into big cultural moments (like the release of Stranger Things’ new season and their endless collabs) rather than “oversaturating the market and turning once highly coveted merchandise into entirely unremarkable reproductions,” (i.e. literally everything bearing the Friends logo). YPulse research shows young consumers’ affinity for comfort and familiarity are proving to be big drivers of ‘90s and Y2K nostalgia. (Fast Company)