The Latest Divisive ‘Y2K’ Trend? Sexy-Cozy Juicy Couture Tracksuits

On a recent trip to Los Angeles, I was shocked to notice a young woman striding through the Sunset Tower Hotel restaurant wearing a bubblegum-pink velour Juicy Couture tracksuit with “Juicy” spelled in rhinestones across her derriere. With her long blond hair and visible thong, she was a dead ringer for the outfit’s original champion, Paris Hilton, who made skimpy-cozy Juicy ensembles her signature in the early 2000s. Sighing into my French fries, I felt the panic of a millennial old enough to remember the gaudy look’s first heyday. Didn’t we just recover from that haute-athleisure period? 

Twenty-seven years after Juicy Couture was founded in Los Angeles by Gela Nash-Taylor and Pamela Skaist-Levy, the brand is attracting fans among teenagers and 20-somethings who weren’t born yet when celebrities like Ms. Hilton, Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez first paraded the look through West Hollywood. “We put L.A. style on the map at a time when celebrity was becoming the driving force in fashion,” wrote Ms. Nash-Taylor and Ms. Skaist-Levy in their 2014 book “The Glitter Plan: How We Started Juicy Couture for $200 and Turned It Into a Global Brand.”