10 Trendy Clothing Items You Should Leave In Your 20s

As you become a proper adult, you should stop wearing these clothing items.

May 29, 2015
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Full disclosure: I'm in my late twenties. If I was ever cool, I probably reached peak coolness sometime around twenty-two, when I didn't have to have a job that required my full attention, and as such I could spend my time worrying about things like what bands have "sold out" and which craft beer will tell the girl at the house party that I'm classy yet down to Earth.

Writing for a pop culture web site continually reminds me that my coolest days are behind me. My editors have to tell me about phrases like "on fleek." From time to time, I'll make a pop culture analogy, only to have it replaced with one more current. Sometimes, I read through my copy to see names that I have only cursory familiarity with, like Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea in my articles, replacing references to pop stars from the TRL era and indie bands from 2003.

While I can't offer you coolness, what I can offer you is perspective. If there is such a thing as aging gracefully, it begins sooner than you think. We all know that you don't want to be the 55 year-old man with frosted tips wearing an Ed Hardy shirt, but the sad truth is that there are some fashion items that you'll get too old for sooner than you think. As you edge your way towards thirty, you'll realize that it's best that your skinny jeans are no longer so skinny, that your cargo shorts have a little less cargo. As the years go by, looking good looks different. Something that was a staple of your closet three years ago may have to head to Goodwill where it will find a loving home with a younger, cooler man. Here are 10 Trendy Clothing Items You Should Leave In Your 20s.

Skinny Jeans

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No one is asking you make the move right from skinny jeans to dad jeans. That's something that you shouldn't wish on your worst enemy. Dad jeans have brought low some of the most powerful men in the free world.

However, at a certain point, you have to acknowledge reality. Even the fittest among us will start feeling the effects of gravity sooner or later, and there comes a certain age where it is no longer polite to walk around in public showing subtly showing off the outline of your balls. 

Don't go full dad jean, but as the years go by, a good fit might mean just a little more give to that denim. Your goal should be buying jeans that fit, and fit well. If you've been hitting the squat rack hard, it's okay to wear pants that show off those hard-earned glutes. But, please recognize that you aren't at a Fallout Boy concert circa 2003. It is time to let the boys breathe and leave a little something to the imagination.

Cargo Shorts

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Don't despair, dude bros. There are still certain venues where your cargo shorts are acceptable. Once you get older, you can still wear them around the house. You can mow your lawn in them, just as your father wore his way too short cut-off jean shorts to mow the lawns of your childhood. You can wear them on your beach vacation as you sip Corona Lights from bottle protected by "Life's A Beach" koozies. You can even where them when you scream, red-faced at your future child's youth soccer games.

As far as more social public settings go, there is a hard and fast rule. When you leave college and finally place your hackeysack and decorative bong in long-term storage, it is time to retire those cargo shorts as well. If you wear cargo shorts to the bar after age 25, you are going to repel women as readily as I do when I tell them I'm a freelance writer. If you wear cargo shorts to a restaurant that doesn't have a red sign you can see from the interstate, you are guilty of a fashion faux pas. 

There is no need to rend your cargo shorts in a fit of bro rage. You can hang onto your precious cargos, just remember there is a right time and place for those many-pocketed shorts.

Short Shorts

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We say that you shouldn't wear those baggy cargos and then we turn around and tell you that you shouldn't wear short shorts either. It seems unfair, yes, but damn it, life is unfair. With each passing year, you'll learn that lesson over and over again. If the way you learn that lesson is through shorts wearing limitations, and not personal tragedy, then you are a lucky person indeed.

Of course, no man in their right mind thinks they can pull off hot pants, but even those mid-thigh shorts beloved of the young and the hip only work for men before they can be described as "of a certain age." That schoolboyish look sported by the man to the left wears thin when you're of an age where you could have had your doctorate by now if you had just listened to your mother. 

Backwards Hat

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Ideally, you never wear a hat backwards unless you're the catcher for a basebeall team or you're the frontman of Limp Bizkit.

If you're just one of those people that loves having their head covered, but hates the idea of keeping the sun out of your eyes, you are allowed to practice this style faux pas into your mid-twenties. After that, it's time to turn your hat forward and look to the future. The backwards hat is a sign of cheeky, somewhat douchey youthful rebellion, much like hanging out at the gas station smoking cigarettes and rolling your eyes whenever an adult give you useful advice. Once you become the adult giving said advice and you start telling kids to stop smoking and go home, it's time to give up the backwards hat.

Tank Tops

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Even if you have the body for wearing a tank top outside of hitting the gym or painting your house, that doesn't mean that you should. The urge to show off a body you've worked hard to maintain is a hard one to resist, but vanity ages worse than even the most fly by night fashion trends. 

As you get older, find more subtle ways to let the young divorcees you're chasing know that you've still got it. The right slim-cut button up will let them know that you "lift, bro" and a t-shirt that fits just right will show off your arms without the added layer of obvious desperation. 

Unless you're playing in one of those delightfully pathetic old man's pick-up basketball games, public tank tops are no bueno.

Too Deep V-Neck Shirts

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Just as you have to Goldilocks your shorts game, seeking out something that is not too baggy and not too tight, so too must you monitor your cleavage. You shouldn't limit yourself to a crew neck. You are aging, but you're not dead for god's sake. But at a certain age, a v-neck that plunges down to your belly button is going to feel trashy, desperate, or both. 

It's not that we're prudes. There are certain men among us who will be able to pull off as deep a V as they like until they have shimmering patches of graying chest hair. We just encourage you to be honest at your personal v-neck limitations. Just as Icarus paid dearly for flying too close to the sun, you would do well not to plunge too deeply with that neckline.

Shirts With Too Many Buttons Left Unbuttoned

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At a certain age, it is no longer cool to party like a rock star. Right around the same time, it becomes poor form to wear your shirt like a rock star. No one is asking you tuck in your shirt and look like the floor manager at Kohl's, but you need to enforce a strict two button limit no matter how lose you are trying to hang.

As you get older, you have to tidy up a number of things in your life. You should drink one or two less beers. You should tidy up your room a couple more times a week. And you should utilize most of the buttons on your shirt as God and the designer intended. There will come a point where you're too old for anyone to care if you're buttoning any of the buttons on your shirt at all. But, until that day comes, keep it tasteful.

Drop Crotch Pants

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Thankfully, I was already too old for these bad boys when they hit the scene. The idea of taking fashion cues from Justin Bieber makes as much sense to me as taking etiquette tips from Justin Bieber. Even a more conservative jogger pant feels like a crotch too low.

If you're in your late teens or early twenties, by all means, wear yourself some harem pants. We all need photos to regret in our old age. Just beware that with each generation comes youth fashion that wears well only on the young and the beautiful. These trendy fashions are not meant for those too far on the wrong side of twenty-five. Just as the seventies didn't look kindly on dad bods trying to squeeze in to punk rock garb and the 90s grunge look didn't wear well on people old enough to be a part of the system, youth fashion remains for youths. If you are young and beautiful and stupid, sow your wild olds while wearing harem pants, young man. But, when the sweet bird of youth flutters away, and the first streaks of grey hair arrive on your once golden mane, let that bird take the harem pants with it.

Distressed Anything

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Thankfully, the longstanding trend of distressed jeans is finally fading into the American Eagle bargain bin of eternity. From time to time, you still see a pre-faded t-shirt or pre-torn jacket on the rack. The fact of the matter is that if you've been a grown-ass man long enough to have actually worn out the clothing, it may be a bad idea to sport distressed gear. Leave the ripped shirts and holed pants to people who still count stumbling drunkenly home from the bar as a hobby. At a certain age, the ripped and torn look will stop looking edgy and start looking like you have fallen on hard times.

Nostalgia and Irony

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About a year ago at this time, we were all talking about Normcore. Though dressing like your dad may have felt pretty novel, Normcore is part of a broader tradition of dressing ironically, a kind of nodding fashion that is cool because it is so uncool. To dress ironically is to tell the world you believe in your coolness so deeply that you know that wearing something uncool will make you cooler. This should go without saying, but this is a young man's game.

Whether it comes in the form of wearing a vintage Hall & Oates concert tee, a nerdy-ass plaid shirt straight out of Accountant's Quarterly, or embracing Normcore, dressing ironically has long been a staple of the tragically cool. At a certain point, irony has to stop being a way of life and go back to being merely a literary device that people don't really understand. Sooner or later, an adult has to accept that they simply like things, that guilty pleasures are only guilty to people who have too much time on their hands.

You can only listen to Taylor Swift so many times on your commute, singing along to "Blank Space" at the top of your lungs, before you have to admit that you actually, truly, passionately enjoy her music. And you can only wear that Member's Only jacket so long before you have to admit that life isn't just some giant theme party, and maybe, just maybe, you actually like how the jacket looks on you.

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