Ah Yes, The Most Regrettable Fashion Trend Of The 00s: The Useless Belt

If there’s one 2000s trend I simply can’t get over, it’s useless belts. Sure, we wore skirts over jeans and trucker caps, but let’s all agree – useless belts were by far the worst concept to come from that decade.

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Let’s start with the waist belt. Now, if you were wearing a poufy dress then a waist belt makes sense. Create a waist etc etc, right? But what about… over fitted t-shirts.

Michael Bezjian/WireImage

Ah yes, that time between 2005-2008 when we all wore large, bulky belts around tops that absolutely did not need any cinching, whatsoever. They also restricted our breathing to the shallowest of levels, so that was a fun time.

Here’s Lindsay Lohan wearing a material version TO COURT.

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Amazing areas.

Some waist belts did cinch in those flowy long tops, but there’s still something off-putting about a waist belt when you’re wearing jeans, don’t you think? Like your hips are up under your boobs.

Jamie McCarthy/WireImage

Like this was one of the less offensive versions of the waist-belt trend but also, Kelly what are you doing? That’s a business shirt.

This makes slightly more sense, Vanessa Hudgens.

Meanwhile, can I interest you in Hilary Duff during the Joel Madden years, wearing an 00s signature stretchy belt?

Sylvain Gaboury/FilmMagic

What an IMAGE, you guys.

Meanwhile, what the shit is going on here.

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There’s so much to unpack. Mainly why is she looping that gold stretchy belt through a cropped jacket. That’s done up.

Moving on – the useless hip belt was also a chaotic mood. These a) did not do anything and b) didn’t even go through your belt loops.

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J. Vespa/WireImage for PMK/HBH

There was always a Western theme, but I can’t think of one (1) cowboy who wore useless belts.

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Sometimes you even wore them OVER your shirt, like tiny foetus Ali Lohan here:

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Gregg DeGuire/WireImage

And other tiny foetus Miley Cyrus – a repeat offender.

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useless belts

And finally, the piece-de-resistance… MATERIAL BELTS. We already saw a hint of this from Lindsay at the top, but let’s just marvel at this bizarre look from Mandy Moore.

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Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage

Good god, why didn’t we just make higher-waisted jeans? Then we would not need these ugly useless belts! The mind boggles.

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