7 Trends That Will Be Huge This Summer

Shopping, travel, dating, you name it. This summer, expect to see the people around you doing fun or frivolous things with fervor—almost as revenge for all the things they couldn’t do this past year. That might mean picking up an entirely new summer wardrobe (sans sweatpants) in one go. Or revenge dating could mean saying yes to every Tinder match that comes your way. As for travel, expect revenge bookings to go through the roof. Indeed luxury travel network Virtuoso is already seeing a significant surge, reporting hotel bookings for the month of June 2021 up 146 percent over May 2021.

The debate over skinny jeans rages on, and while some millennials insist on clinging to their, well, clingy denim, many others are embracing the Gen Z-approved looser styles like mom jeans, dad jeans and wide-leg or flared silhouettes. Want proof? Google searches for baggy jeans, straight leg jeans and wide leg jeans are all up exponentially from last year, signaling that more and more people are interested in giving their legs a little more breathing room. (In case you’re unsure of how to wear looser denim, here are some outfit suggestions.)

Rapper Megan Thee Stallion told The Root that Hot Girl Summer, the term she coined, is “Just basically about women—and men—just being unapologetically them, just having a good-ass time, hyping up your friends, doing you, not giving a damn about what nobody got to say about it. You definitely have to be a person that can be the life of the party, and, y’know, just a bad bitch.” This summer, expect boomers to get in on the action. Why? According to the CDC, 65.6 percent of people over the age of 65 are fully vaccinated and 80.6 percent of the same group are partially vaccinated, and with no unvaccinated children to hold them back, are free to party and travel to their heart's content.

Tired: Working from home. Wired: Hosting from home. That is, at least according to the many folks who are anxious to start expanding their Covid bubbles and entertaining friends and family—safely—from their backyards or living rooms (once everyone’s vaccinated, of course). Pinterest has seen a 90 percent increase in searches for “organize your life” versus last year, an 80 percent increase in searches for “furniture renovation” and a 33 percent increase in searches for “cleaning plan.” Sounds like folks are prepping their houses for post-vaccine soirees, no?

According to Politico, more than 40 percent of Americans live in places were weed is now legal. And, as more states decriminalize/legalize pot, tons of new weed-centric brands—like ALT liquid cannabis, Kin Slips THC sublingual strips and Kiva edibles—are launching and expanding. Does this mean we'll see a slowdown in the CBD craze as more potent cannabinoids become more widely legal and available? Only time—and Seth Rogen's this-makes-so-much-sense cannabis brand—will tell. (Reminder that cannabis criminalization has disproportionately targeted people of color; learn more about cannabis criminalization reform here.)

The 90s are back, baby. At least they seem to be among nail art enthusiasts. Searches for Y2K nails are up 30 times on Pinterest since this time last year. Think: bright flowers, lava lamp patterns and colorful flames.

For many, a year of being cooped up inside meant consuming more alcohol than ever before. Now, though, a sizeable portion of those folks are turning to beverages with low alcohol contents or none at all. In fact, the IWSR (the leading source of data, analysis and insights on the global beverage alcohol market) predicts that sales of no/low alcoholic beverages will increase by 31 percent in volume by 2024. And these aren’t your run-of-the-mill O’Doul’s knock-offs: Brands like Kin Euphorics, Optimist Botanicals and Athletic Brewing Co. are combining inventive flavors with chic packaging to cater to the alcohol-free—or sober-curious—set.

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