How the youngins are drawing inspiration from grandpa’s wardrobe

You may struggle to imagine your grandparents being stylish, but it’s in grandpa’s wardrobe that you’ll soon find the fashion treasures that will make your look complete, as the ‘Eclectic Grandpa’ aesthetic is taking hold at the start of 2024.

Younger generations are constantly drawing on the trends of the past to create ever more inventive looks.

We’ve been seeing this for several months now, with the major comeback of the 1990s, and even more so for the 2000s.

Now, however, it seems that people are turning their backs at least temporarily, on these two decades, and focusing their attention on their grandparents’ wardrobes.

After looking to grandma for inspiration whether through the ‘coastal grandmother’ aesthetic or renewed interest in handicrafts like knitting and crochet. It’s now in grandpa’s closet that young people intend to delve for fashion finds. This trend is being called the ‘Eclectic Grandpa’ aesthetic, and it’s already attracting a huge following in the early days of 2024.

Eclectic Grandpa hashtag hits 10 million views

Contrary to what you might think, this is not just another fad among Gen Z and Millennials, but rather a real fashion phenomenon.

Not only has the hashtag associated with the trend already scored nearly 10 million views on TikTok, but some of the key pieces of the ‘Eclectic Grandpa’ style have already made their way onto the catwalks.

These two indicators reflect the growing interest in Grandpa’s closet, or at least in some of his style staples.

According to the latest Pinterest Predicts report, global searches for ‘grandpa style’ have already risen by 60%. This is also the case for the many garments associated with the trend, such as berets, cardigans and corduroys, notably spotted on the catwalks of major fashion houses such as Dior, Loewe, Givenchy and Fendi.

Now it’s the global fashion search engine Stylight that’s confirming the craze. The platform reports that searches for ‘Eclectic Grandpa’ increased by 442% on Google in the last quarter of 2023.

An impressive rise that has seen certain items return to the forefront of fashion. This is particularly true of oversized sweaters (+146% of clicks on Stylight), corduroy jackets (+29% of clicks), and chunky knit cardigans (+25% of clicks).

It now remains to be seen whether this trend can be sustained over time. Given the renewed interest in vintage fashion in recent months, the aesthetic’s staying power looks promising. So move over, fashion whippersnappers, because grandpa is shaping up to be the hottest style influencer of the moment.

*For this report, Stylight analyzed its users’ search behavior on a monthly basis between September 1 and October 31, 2023, compared with November 1 and December 31, 2023. For Google search figures, the platform compared the number of searches over the last quarter (October 1 to December 31, 2023).