The 2025 Fashion Disasters

We look at old pics from the 1950’s and marvel at how classy and cool the fashions of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Grace Kelly or Cary Grant still appear to this day. Then we look at pics from the 1980s and do a combo of cringe-snort-laugh.

Based on the fact that we can easily use our hindsight to see the beauty-industry horror shows of the past for what they were, you’d think we would stop allowing the beauty industry to talk us into repeating variations of them. Apparently not.

Drumroll please. Here are 2025’s worst beauty trends. If you are doing any of the below, feel free to hate on me. But, let’s be honest, if you are doing the below, in a year from now you’ll be looking at current photos of yourself and cringe-snort-laughing. What are my qualifications for judging, you ask? Well…I have eyes.

Red Rum, Red Rum

Did you just win a magical duel with Gandalf the Grey and as a memento to your victory you pillaged his beard and used it as your eyebrows?

Natural, full eyebrows are beautiful. Feathering, up-brushing and overfilling your eyebrows with pencils until you look like a surprised, potential psychiatric hospital inhabitant, a la Jack Nicholson from The Shining, is not.

The Retired Pimp

I’ve never been a fan of the ‘stache’. However, in the 1800’s with a top hat it was doable. So, if a man’s wardrobe has some old school class going for it, he might be able to pull it off.

On the other hand, when a man has a beat-up baseball cap or toque and t-shirt on, the addition of the stache to this ensemble creates the appearance of a retired pimp or a wanna-be bank robber gone incognito. Either up your wardrobe or get rid of the stache.

When I couldn’t Afford Real Shoes

Socks+Crocs or socks+Birkenstocks: the extended nightmare that should have ended in 2024.

Don’t even start with the “it’s comfortable line”.

Besides making you look like a Smurf-wannabe, Crocs are bad for your feet (1). They lack both arch and heel support, and are made out of plastic, causing increased sweating and potential irritation in addition to increasing risks for tendinitis . Check out any legitimate podiatrist website and it will confirm this. They aren’t a walking shoe. Period. So, if you aren’t showering at the pool, take of your Crocs please.

Birkenstocks are actually recommended by podiatrists. They have great heel and arch support. So, go ahead and wear them. But, don’t tell me that adding socks to this ensemble is a good thing, when the only things that the socks are accomplishing are giving you a horrific farmer tan and collecting every piece of grime, dirt and bacteria along the road. And, oh great, you now came home and took off your Birkenstocks just so you can also smear your sock dirt all over the floors. It’s getting sexier by the minute.

If your toes are cold, buy a covered shoe.

Melted Barbie

Remember the early 2000’s when huge, conspicuous breast implants were THE thing? Let’s flash forward to the 2010’s +, when the same celebrities who got those monster-boobs were removing them, including Christy Teigen, Victoria Beckham, and SZA (2). Decisions to remove were generally a combination of health concerns and the fact that ostentatiously large and obviously fake breasts had over time become associated with artificiality and tackiness (3).

Now let’s flash forward to the 2020’s and let’s watch women repeat the same mistake with neurotoxins and fillers.

The beauty industry isn’t here for your health and joy: it’s here to make money. That means that it is not in their best interest to disseminate research which discloses potential risks and adverse side effects of whatever they are trying to sell to you. However, as this is not a medical but a fashion article we won't dwell on the fact that we are now learning that fillers can migrate (4, 5, 6) as well as cause necrosis and blindness (7, 8). Additionally, dispersed studies are beginning to show that neurotoxins might migrate as well (7, 8).

Let’s stay on par with the theme of this article and focus on the fact that while the filler trend is (thankfully) losing momentum, there are still many women with faces that are so Botoxed and full of filler that they look like they are made of melted plastic. The more neurotoxins a person injects into their face, and the more filler they squeeze into their lips, the more they lose their unique facial features. I call these women Melted Barbies – after one injection too many they all look the same. If you were to put these women side by side in a police line up the witnesses would give up and go home.

The medical information on fillers completely freaks me out and I avoid them like the plague. However, I have used Botox in the past. But, if you’re going to use it, do it sparingly – both for your health and to avoid looking like a mass produced, Mattel product.