A Berlin brand has just released an I

Berlin Fashion Week is in its final hours. Lueder, Sia Arnika, GmbH and Shayne Olivers Anonymous Club have all presented their new season collections on the runways over the past four days. Last night, Berlin-based label Namilia left its usual New York Fashion Week slot to return home and presented a collection that looked like it was lifted straight from the depths of the Y2K era.

On the SS25 agenda were ripped jeans, shrunken baby tees, trashy trucker hats, corsets and leather miniskirts, all adorned with 2000s graphics from a collaboration with Ed Hardy. The slogans that littered the offerings were more controversial: one read Too Pretty for Rehab, while another had Fashion Junkie written in crystals, the words separated by what looked like a glittering line of Coke.

Rounding it all out was a white tank top that read “I <3 Ozempic,” with the entire collection dissecting and poking fun at the perils of fame and the dark side of fashion. But while Namilia’s tongue has always been firmly in her cheek, this particular top felt like a misstep to me.

In recent years, Ozempic has burst into the public consciousness and popular culture, marketed alongside other similar drugs as a quick fix for weight loss despite widespread side effects including nausea and vomiting, loss of pleasure, and links to depression and suicidal thoughts. With the drugs being sold by street dealers to those who can’t get a prescription, Ozempic’s popularity has also led to shortages among people who actually need them, such as diabetics.

Meanwhile, in the fashion world and beyond, the pendulum has swung away from the body positivity and more diverse bodies we saw on the runways, and back toward the ultra-thin, size zero aesthetic that dominated the 2000s. The number of curvy and plus-size models walking the runways has been decreasing season by season, and many have complained of a decline in work not only on the runway but also in advertising campaigns. Even darker, some have reported being told by their agents to lose weight in order to land more jobs.

The Y2K aesthetic has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity since 2018, taking over social media and resale platforms including eBay and Depop. The darker side of the era, with gossip magazines publishing photos of celebrities drunkenly leaving clubs with cameras up their skirts, and the circle of shame format, which highlighted issues like cellulite, weight gain and skin problems, has also been scrutinised and re-evaluated, and the insidious misogyny that underpinned it has been dismantled.

On TikTok, there are countless videos of people, particularly women, who grew up in this era describing the damage it did to their confidence, self-esteem, and body image, and discussing the difficult process of unlearning that inner hatred. Not only does Namilia’s latest collection feel overdue as fashion finally breaks free of its Y2K-era grip, it also regurgitates the damaging message that thinness is back, which is particularly disappointing when the brand has a history of casting a wide range of models of all shapes and sizes, as it did for its SS25 show.

With eating disorders increasing exponentially among young people around the world and Ozempic being touted as a quick and easy way to lose weight, the message of the vests might be tongue-in-cheek and seem ironic and disposable to some.But for a new generation of fashionistas, not yet old enough to have truly experienced the body-positivity movement before it miserably fizzled out, it could sow the same old seeds that took root among millennials back then: Thinness is the be-all and end-all, and you should do whatever you can to achieve it. Joke or not, this one just didn't catch on.