These iPod Shuffle hair clips prove that the 2000s fashion revival isn’t over yet

Everything old is new again, and this week’s happy return is that of Apple’s iPod Shuffle. For several years, guys have been repurposing Shuffles as hair accessories, pins, and more, using the clips on the back of the devices to decorate locks and Levis alike.

Mashable’s Elena Cavender predicted the trend would grow in 2022, following a December 2021 video by the TikTok creator Kira Lynn Faden Using Shuffles as hair clips has received over 350,000 likes. And while we may not have had it on our 2024 bingo cards, it’s back and better than ever.

One photo in particular sparked the Shuffle design craze this year, and it looks like it originally did It was posted on Instagram in 2019 By user Victoria Cammarata. The image had brushes that went viral in the past (it gained over 21,000 notes on Tumblr In January 2021 and 123,000 likes on X/Twitter in September of that year), but the current interest is even higher.

On March 13, User X @voguepearls The photo was published as part of a collection entitled “Technology as Fashion.” This collection was republished by Fashion influencer Dove Clarke, who added the note “This would have gone double platinum on Tumblr in 2014.” Clarke’s repost received more than 228,000 likes, and versions of the image have since been shared on the feeds of large Instagram accounts, including betchys (141,000 followers) and com. structuredmag (376,000 followers).

Now, IT girls are trying out this look. On March 14, pop artist Slater Published photos She wears two blue second-generation iPod Shuffles in her hair, and wired headphones hanging from one ear.

The tweet may have been deleted

On March 17, Madeline White, the creator of Instagram and TikTok Published photosThe 4th generation rollers and tik toks have orange and blue Shuffles hair clips. “Time to raid your dad’s bag of random electronics,” White captioned one of her posts. Upon reading it, this millennial crumbled into a pile of dust.

The repurposing of Y2K technology by Gen Z has been well documented by Mashable’s Elena Cavender, and Gen-Z thrifting icon Emma Rogue explained the appeal in an interview with Mashable last year. “They are experiencing something they have never experienced before,” she says of her generation. “They move back time.”

This growing interest in old technology has led to brands repurposing it into modern accessories. Last year, for example, fashion brand Coperni promoted a bag that doubles as a CD player, and several consumer lines incorporated flip phone images and iconography into their designs.