A new school year means new trendy items, with trends and styles changing in each grade. While some have been popular for a while, new trends have exploded onto the scene, and everyone is talking about them.
For 6th graders, getting caught up with trends is a new and exciting part of being independent. Having just arrived from the Lower School, 6th graders get more independence in Middle School than they had before, and their trends have changed as a result. 6th grader Ella Steele explains that she and her peers in the Lower School had fewer options on what they could wear. “In the Lower School, girls in general wear more dresses on a day-to-day basis because their parents are deciding what they wear,” she says.
Like other 6th grade boys, Courie Whitfield has interests in many different trends, including computer games and clothing brands. He says that he likes Nike clothes and that they are very popular among his peers. 6th graders are also into computer games because this is the first year they have gotten computers. They spend a lot of time playing Brawl Stars, a game where players battle against each other and AI challengers to win. Steele and Whitfield both think that Nike gear, Stanley water bottles, and Goldhinge skirts will stay trendy for a while.
7th graders change their trends as they spend more time in Middle School. 7th graders David Cunningham and Joanne Alexander explain that their peers have become very brand-conscious. 7th graders like clothes and shoes more than any other grade. They both have noticed trends that have evolved and faded. While the current trend favors t-shirts and athletic wear, Cunningham says last year everyone wore something completely different. “A lot of kids wore polo shirts last year,” he said. Along with polo shirts being phased out, Alexander said that the craze around Stanley water bottles has faded. With more trends to come this year, both 7th graders predict that Owalas, a new type of water bottle, and Adidas shoes will be trendy soon.
8th graders, having spent the past three years following the other grades, now get to be role models and set new trends for the rest of the Middle School. 8th graders Ella Perry Douglass, Nora Alikhani, and Asher Clay are discovering their own style, as well as keeping up with and setting the Middle School trends. They have different perspectives on what is trendy. In terms of shoes, the girls said that Hokas and New Balances are popular. Clay said that Nike shoes are very trendy among boys.
In the eighth grade, hairstyles are also a big trend. Alikhani and Douglass said that last year people always wore their hair straightened, but this year students are starting to branch out on hairstyles. “Embrace the curls,” they said. For the boys, Clay predicts that fluffy hair and mullets will become popular.
Middle School teachers Sarah Kossis and Mecia Israel have noticed trends in both teachers and students. Kossis said that the girls wear clothing from Free People, and Israel observed that a big trend has been girls wearing skirts to school. Israel also likes the way the new dress code empowers the boys. “I love the new dress code and boys get to come to school comfortable,” she says, adding that in the years past the girls got to be comfortable while the boys had to have their shirts tucked in.
Teachers are not immune to being swept up in trends, too. Israel observes that old teachers wear dresses and young teachers wear planned outfits. Along with clothing, Kossis observed that country music is trendy and that students making their own playlists and expressing themselves through music is very popular.
While trends might change throughout each grade, some things stay the same like shoes and water bottles. Every grade said everyone is wearing the same shoes and has the same water bottle, but the most important thing to remember is that life isn’t about what you have; it’s about who you are.