‘Emily in Paris’ Brings Back Another Questionable ’00s Trend: The Shrug

One of the most joyful things about watching Emily In Paris has got to be the fashion. Even when all those love triangles and professional mishaps start to get a bit tiresome, the Netflix show’s many aesthetic pleasures keep us gripped. What will Emily, aka Gen Z’s answer to Carrie Bradshaw, wear next?

The answer — a shrug! — is not what Us might have hoped for. In the new teaser pics from season 4, which starts on Netflix on August 15 , Emily ( Lily Collins ) is wearing an item last seen in the mid ‘00s on numerous starlets, along with a few million normal women who just didn’t like their arms much (guilty!).

It feels like less of a boundary-pushing fashion statement and more like something you grab at the last minute when you chicken out of baring your shoulders at the office party, or when you’re headed to a summer get-together and are worried a chill might descend later.

Of course, we should have seen this coming — questionable late ‘90s and early ‘00s trends, from low-rise jeans to ballet flats, are all over the red carpet, the catwalk and the sidewalk right now. In fact, the shrug fits right in with the “ballet-core” trend that’s having a moment.

The ‘00s Trends Stars Like Meghan Markle, Jennifer Lopez and Rihanna Are Embracing

And it’s not just fictional Emily rocking this controversial look either: a real-life fashion-forward Emily, model Emily Ratajkowski , has succumbed recently too. As this is not a woman likely to have any insecurities about her shoulders, we guess it’s because she thinks it’s cool.

Likewise, Olivia Rodrigo also proudly shared a shot of her own pink shrug on her birthday. One star wearing a shrug could be a blip, an outlier, but two? Definitely an emerging trend. Yikes.

The reason that many early ‘00s trends can look so tacky now is because it was an era when more was more: why wear a tropical asymmetric dress OR skintight bejeweled jeans when you can put one over the other? Why wear a plain gypsy skirt and one-shouldered tank top when you can accessorize them with a totally enormous belt that sheds jewels wherever you go?

To our critical 2020s eyes, which got a normcore makeover during the pandemic, it can all look a bit overdone and brings to mind the famous Coco Chanel (which Countess Luann has often repeated) quote: “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.”

In the early ‘00s, we all did the opposite: before we left the house, we basically covered ourselves in glue and rolled around in our closet until we were wearing absolutely everything we owned. Including, yup, a shrug. If you had one in every color of the rainbow, so that no outfit was left neglected, you were not alone. Ashley Tisdale , Mischa Barton , Ashlee Simpson , Fergie and even Rihanna were right there with you.

Another important question we found ourselves pondering — is a shrug the same as a bolero or are they two totally different items? Well, it seems the two terms are often used interchangeably, but technically a shrug is worn open over a top or dress, while a bolero has the same function but always has a closure at the front. You’re welcome.