It’s no big secret that fashion recycles its old trends. Ask any fashion slave, and she’ll be happy to confirm that the styles are cyclical. Currently, this fashion practice seems to be taking place more than ever. Recent fashion is taking its clothing cues from numerous 20th century styles, running the gamut from the 1950s through the 1980s.

What does this mean for us Baby Boomers?

Whether you once wished you were old enough to be a Beatnik or a teenybopper, or as a teenager turned into a hippie or a Mod, you’ll easily spot some of the fashion elements from your formative years in today’s trends.

Still have a pair of cigarette pants stashed away? Go find them, because they are today’s skinny jeans. Same goes for 1960s-era pyramid coats, A-line shift dresses, and pea coats.

If tracksuits, tweeds or fringed boots from the 1970s were more your style, you’re in luck. Those are back in, too. You might also want to look through your closet for 1970s granny skirts, peasant blouses, and anything resembling the hippie look. It’s all the rage again, only now it’s called bohemian style.

Feel silly wearing this look? Give it to your trendy daughter in college, she’ll know what to do with it.

All of this fashion “borrowing” from past trends may seem to cast current style makers in a lazy light, but it has been common practice for ages. The hippie and Mod looks of the 1960s borrowed elements from the 1920s flapper style. The 1980s “big shoulders” look was a throwback to the 1940s.

Yes, the term for hip huggers is now low-rise jeans and Mohawks became faux-hawks, but everyone knows they come from our generation. Remember what your mother said? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Baby Boomers, consider yourselves complimented.

Have something to add to this story? Continue your trip down memory lane at Boomer Yearbook