No. 030: The Mid-Year 2025 Trend Report
Labubus, SkinnyTok, AI therapy, and other propaganda I'm not falling for
Happy Thursday, ya’ll!
You guys loved my first ever 2025 trend report, and now that we’re somehow halfway through the year, it felt like the perfect time to take a step back and see what’s been trending in the first half of 2025.
It’s been an interesting year, but it’s always fun to see what patterns are emerging across brands and pop culture.
I will say, much of what I predicted for the year so far is coming to fruition. But, as always, there are plenty of curveballs.
Enjoy & please share with anyone you think would find this interesting! Your support lets me do this thing.
xx
Sabena
🪄5 TRENDS FOR THE FIRST HALF OF 2025
1. Nostalgia is driving a LOT of our purchase decisions.
Let’s start somewhere kinda fun! Lububus — or mini dolls with mischievous little faces — are having a MOMENT. These furry little dolls come in blind boxes and sell out in minutes, are $30 a pop, and beloved by celebs like Rihanna, Dua Lipa and Blackpink’s Lisa — who love to adorn their $5k+ handbags with them.
They’re created by China-based Pop Mart, who did nearly $2 billion in 2024, with Labubus accounting for $400 million in revenue (a 726% increase YoY). Insane.
My theory on why these, why now is that 1) the TikTokification of fashion means everything is a trend that feels like a MUST and 2) we’re all looking for a bit of levity and joy in otherwise bleak times (sad but unfortunately true).
But it’s not just Labubus that are playing into nostalgia. We’re seeing it across brands and industries…
2000s TV!!!! Disney+ and Hulu are teaming up to offer “Throwback” TV — giving millennials (and maybe their kids I guess?) a chance to watch their favorites from the early 2000’s, including Lizzie McGuire, Hannah Montana, Boy Meets World and other “comfort shows.” I think they could really tell we needed this.
Froyo is back. NYMag just wrote an article entitled “New York Cit"y is Ready for Some Fro-Yo” and if that doesn’t scream 2008, I don’t know what does. This feels like an opportunity for Big Protein…
The return of the mascot. WNBA Team New York Liberty’s mascot is basically a celebrity — and I think it signals the return of the mascot in marketing. Ellie the Elephant has nearly 200,000 TikTok followers, wears custom Nike kicks and flaunts a designer handbag collection that would make Carrie Bradshaw jealous — and it’s working.
Gap, Abercrombie, and the return of the mall brand. Gap has had a noteworthy comeback thanks to red carpet appearances and splashy ad campaigns that get back to the brand’s 90s roots — all of which has led sales growth of 7%; I’ve also written about the return of Abercrombie, which continues to be in its heyday.
🌶 Hot Take: Nostalgia is great, but so is listening to your customer. If I were a legacy brand, I’d do a ton of research to see what products, campaigns, or moments your community most loves—and bring one or two of those back in a big way. As a new brand, I’d focus on “borrowed nostalgia,” or giving your brand a vintage feel that feels “lived in.” And remember, mascots are back, so do with that what you will…
2. Turns out, no one is immune to propaganda.
There is a big TikTok trend right now called “Propaganda I’m Not Falling For” — where a creator posts a photo of him/herself and a bunch of things they categorically refuse to believe. Exhibit A:
Like it or not, we are living in a time where having strong opinions is sort of raige-baity. Just look at controversial podcast host and entrepreneur Lauryn Bosstick, who has turned wellness into a cult and is profiting off everything from mouth tape to daily meat bowls, and most recently, non-toxic toilet paper, which she calls “The Birkin Bag of Toilet Paper.” It’s working, as the Skinny Confidential brand has seen 66% year-over-year revenue growth.
I do think it’s interesting that with this trend, people are questioning things that we’ve just “accepted” as normal. Some standouts for me personally:
mouth tape (ironic)
oat milk
baby botox
gracie abrams
clean girl aesthetic
circling back
cyber trucks
melatonin
ballet flats
capris
🌶 Hot Take: To me, this trend is all about trust — consumers are more aware they’re being marketed to than ever before, at a time when they are cutting back on spending — both of which make our jobs a lot harder. How do you, as a brand, build trust? This takes great content, education, and transparency, and most importantly, time.
3. Ozempic and SkinnyTok are bringing us back to 90’s era body standards.
Speaking of wellness cults, the wellness dialogue online is LOUD lately. We’re continuing to see the rise of Ozempic coupled with an obsession with being skinny.
GLP-1s have experienced EXPLOSIVE growth in the US. A total of 4% of all Americans are on some kind GLP-1 (2% specifically for weightloss/obesity), which is a 600% increase since 2019.
With the rise of Ozempic, Weight Watchers officially filed for bankruptcy — which is not shocking. This New York Times opinion article interestingly states that with the loss of Weight Watchers, we might be losing the community aspect to weight loss… which I don’t entirely disagree with.
You can now buy Wegovy, a GLP-1 by Novo Nordisk, via Hims & Hers — making it more accessible and available than ever before... which has implications on everything from the the snacks we eat to the wedding dress industry.
In other health trends — we’re seeing the rise of creatine. I wrote about Arrae’s foray into creatine, and now brands like Lemme are getting into it, too. Is this the new protein? Perhaps.
Then there’s SkinnyTok. Posterchild of the movement is influencer Liv Schmidt, who encourages her followers to follow a Skinni Girl lifestyle in her subscriber-only group on Instagram (she was banned from TikTok); just two days ago, her Meta account was also banned from monetizing.
And finally, Oura Ring data is making us anxious — which isn’t shocking, but another indicator of this obsession with tracking, data, and optimization. With the news that OpenAI is building a wearable… we might be in too deep.
🌶 Hot Take: It’s clearer than ever that we all want to live longer, healthier lives — but I think we may be losing the plot on the power of sustainable change and doing things in community (aka, are we making this much harder on ourselves than it needs to be, and definitely way less fun?). As a brand, I’d find ways to talk about how I bring a little joy into people’s lives… what about a “it’s not that serious” campaign?
4. Brands are heading to Substack — because in 2025, every brand is also a media company.
This feels meta, but we’re seeing more and more brands migrate to Substack.
wrote a great piece on this earlier this year, where she talked about some of the reasons brands are getting on the platform. Per Ad Age, brands see Substack as “as a way to meet consumers in a more personable manner while avoiding much of the chaos of larger social media networks.”The Real Real
| 3k subscribers. Since TheRealReal can sometimes feel a bit cold and transactional, this is really smart way to put some storytelling around the pieces on the site and position them as a thought leader in the resale space.
2. Tory Burch
| 4k subscribers. This is part fashion advice column, part magazine — and feels like a way to have a deeper conversation with brand fans.
Hinge
| 1k subscribers. In an effort to better connect with Gen Z and show the real life success stories of app users, Hinge is rolling out a 5-part weekly series to “explore the complexities of dating in a modern way.” I like the concept, but I’m wondering what happens after the 5 weeks is over?
🌶 Hot Take: I don’t mind that brands are on Substack, as I think it’s a new channel to explore (the best of them all, IMO!!!) and a way to connect with fans in a more meaningful way than through a 30 sec TikTok. But now that brands are here, can they do something truly… interesting? Maybe there’s an opportunity to bring on guest writers, create a “drop journal” where they take users BTS, or even hosting a private popup that’s ONLY for subscribers.
5. AI is kind of our best friend…but also our worst enemy.
It would be hard to write a trend forecasting piece in 2025 and not mention AI, so here goes.
We’re seeing the rise of the AI Therapist — which can be especially impactful in areas where therapists are not available, or for people for whom therapy is cost prohibitive.
To back this up — I found this infographic from BBC fascinating, as it shows the difference between use cases for AI in 2024 vs. 2025 — and we clearly are finding more ways to incorporate the tool into our professional & personal lives, and fewer around learning and education or research.
But then there’s the dark side of all of this… the very real possibility that AI is coming for… all of our jobs.
Duolingo, for example, is under fire after its CEO said that the company would be cutting contractor jobs in favor of AI tools to help with efficiency and productivity. (He’s now walking a lot of those comments back). Shopify has made similar comments and experienced backlash as well.
And then there’s the issue of AI-generated content. SET Active’s Chief Brand Officer, for example, has talked about how AI is a large part of Set Active’s marketing stack — noting that they use it specifically to create “fiction” like a recent April Fool’s Day social post.
says that “proof of reality” will become the new status symbol for brands — or showing that their content was not created by AI.🌶 Hot Take: In the midst of these AI surge, there’s an opportunity for human-centric brands to own that positioning. Whether you have artisans or craftsmen at the helm, or simply use humans to write your social media captions — there are ways to give people a “look behind the curtain” and showcase how real people are running the show. I think there’s a desire, more than ever, for true connection (and the personality that comes with it!!)
SOME MORE QUICK HITS…
To round out the week, here’s a short & sweet wrapup of brand news:
David Protein Bar raised $75M to continue their mission of “design[ing] tools to increase muscle and decrease fat” to me, they are really building the Nike of protein bars… so curious to see where they go.
Rhode sold to E.l.f. Beauty for $1B just 3 years after starting the brand
Tory Burch x Bonbon collabed on a cute little collection of candy-inspired accessories (nostalgia, anyone?)
Chobani acquired plant-based food brand Daily Harvest for a reported $600M.
TikToker Jaz decided to livestream (live-TikTok? IDK) her Oheka Castle wedding, gained thousands of followers — and I think this is a defining moment for Gen Z wedding culture from now on… aka brand deals >
Hermes launched $15,000 headphones that some people will definitely buy.
…and finally, Sirens on Netflix is good so far, but if you haven’t watched Your Friends and Neighbors yet, what are you doing?!
Would love to hear what you thought of this one. Let me know & share with a friend!
Also, I’m going to back brand deep dives. If you have a brand you’ve been wanting to know more about… drop it below!
Talk soon,
Sabena
David protein bar is giving Kälteen Bars from Mean Girls
I’ve been mulling over point 4 too lately. Now you’ve added some confirmation to my thinking on it.