When I’m spiraling down a black hole of adulthood-flavored stress, I don’t meditate or count my breaths. I simply visualize TRL, conjuring up the vision of Carson, Hilarie, La La, and Quddus as they hovered over Times Square from roughly 1998–2003. If I squint hard enough, I can see the aura that hovered over my formative years: a calming-yet-cheerful, pastel-yet-poppy shade of baby blue.
Two of the outfits Christina Aguilera wears in the “Come on Over” music video were baby blue. So was the crop top Britney Spears wore at the 1999 edition of Zootopia. The majority of Baby Spice’s dresses were that color, as were AJ McLean’s glasses. Baby blue figured prominently in Destiny’s Child’s European “No, No, No” single cover and was the best part of their blue camo moment. Justin Timberlake wore matchy-matchy baby blue bucket-hat outfits and owned a FUBU jersey that he wore for *NSYNC’s many athlete-cosplay performances.
Baby blue also tinted the other bastion of late ’90s/early-aughts pop culture, the Disney Channel. It was the color of the best Cheetah Girl sweatsuit; the color scheme Lizzie McGuire chose for her Teen Attitude magazine diva model moment, and the shade of Brandy’s live-action Cinderella dress. It was the preferred color for those fitted tees that had weird things like “ANGEL,” “ATTITUDE,” or “BABY” bedazzled across the front, and Roxy board-shorts worn with zero irony even though you I lived 198 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean.
And now it’s back. These days, it’s bubble hems at Simone Rocha, fringe chainmail armor at Gucci, feathery ruffles at Marc Jacobs, and half of the Victorian dresses at Erdem. It’s woven through Staud’s entire Instagram grid. But baby blue remains adolescent, airy, and care-free. Baby blue likes flipping through dELiA*s catalogues, crafting away messages, and voting for music videos with landline phones. It never takes itself too seriously and has enough free time ~*~*tO TypE eNtiRe SeNTenCes lIkE ThiS.*~*~ Baby blue forever lives in a simpler era.
Here are 14 baby blue things to take you there.
Paging Liv Tyler.
Available in sizes XS–L.