From MySpace and Twilight to Tinder and Trump, we take a trip down memory lane to see how life has moved on since Fabulous’ first-ever issue
BASSHUNTER was top of the music charts, Gordon Brown was PM and we could still raid Woolworths for our fave pick ‘n’ mix. They may feel like dim and distant memories now, but this was the way of things back on February 2, 2008, the day Fabulous magazine launched.
There have been many highs and lows, twists and turns over the years, from same-sex marriage being legalised in Britain to Donald Trump’s election as US president and the ongoing Brexit fiasco.
We’ve said sad goodbye to legends (especially in 2016), and we’ve gasped at TV gold – from Andy Murray winning Wimbledon in 2013 and Madonna’s stage fall at the 2015 Brits to Warren Beatty announcing the wrong Best Picture winner at last year’s Oscars.
As we reflect on the past decade, the world of 2008 is almost unrecognisable. Here’s what else has changed…
Celebrity
Taylor’s takeover and trying to keep up with the Kardashians
When Fabulous launched, Twilight mania was in full swing, and some of today’s biggest movie stars were still fresh-faced teens landing their first roles in Hollywood.
Emma Stone had yet to tap-dance her way into our hearts and was playing a nerdy sorority girl in romcom The House Bunny, while a 17-year-old Jennifer Lawrence was still waiting for her big break in 2010’s Winter’s Bone.
And I, Tonya’s Margot Robbie? Far from heading to the Dolby Theatre after her first Oscar nomination – not to mention producing her own films – she was Down Under starring in Neighbours.
The last 10 years have seen Taylor Swift go from angelic country singer to one of the most powerful pop stars of the century – dating her way through the showbiz world as she goes.
Miley Cyrus also ditched her cowboy boots and brought twerking to the masses, and Cheryl went from humble girl-band singer to beloved X Factor judge.
After two short-lived marriages, she’s now had her first baby with Liam Payne – who was still in school in 2008, aged just 14! And the decade has been rife with celeb heartache, with the break-ups of Brangelina (sob), TomKat, and Bennifer 2.0.
We’ve also said a final farewell to music legends David Bowie, Prince, George Michael and Whitney Houston, as well as Star Wars heroine Carrie Fisher.
And what would a celeb round-up be without mentioning the most famous family on earth? No, not the monarchy, but reality TV royalty the Kardashians.
In 2008, Kylie Jenner was only nine, while Kim had yet to break the internet with her bare bum – that year she was a contestant on America’s Dancing With The Stars (LOL).
Since then, the K-clan have multiplied, with Kim and hubby Kanye West welcoming North, Saint and Chicago, Kourtney giving birth to Mason, Penelope and Reign, and Rob becoming dad to baby Dream. Now Khloé is expecting – and Kylie, er, may or may not be.
Meanwhile, Kendall has gone from awkward teen to stunning supermodel, while former Olympian Bruce Jenner underwent gender reassignment surgery and asked the world to “call me Caitlyn” in 2015.
So what can we expect in the next 10 years? PR guru Lizzie Earl, who runs Munch PR and has worked with stars for more than a decade, predicts a new era of “super-celebs”.
“Before social media blew up, celebs were cast for jobs based on traditional talents like acting and singing,” explains Lizzie. “Now being an online ‘influencer’ plays a massive part in stars landing jobs, and we’re starting to see the rise of a new generation of ‘celeb royalty’.
These individuals are born from two A-list parents – for example, Brooklyn Beckham, Lily-Rose Depp and Jaden Smith – and have been huge influencers since birth.
Unlike their parents, many have grown up in a world where they have direct access to their fans through social media. As a result, they’ve become ridiculously popular and therefore powerful within the industry.
Soon they’ll be taking over Tinseltown.”
Culture
From fierce feminists to fidget spinners
The past decade has been huge for women. We’ve seen the rise of the Everyday Sexism project, a website that documents daily examples of sexism around the world, as well as the recent #MeToo hashtag denouncing sexual assault and harassment in the wake of allegations against Harvey Weinstein. But we still have a long way to go.
Despite Britain’s gender pay gap falling to its lowest level since records began 20 years ago, the Trades Union Congress has warned we’re still decades away from equal pay for men and women, while women continue to face prejudice across the globe.
On the plus side, we’ve finally got a female Doctor Who. And body positivity has become all the rage (hallelujah!), as women learn to embrace their bodies and plus-size models Iskra Lawrence and Ashley Graham fly the flag for bootylicious babes everywhere.
During the last decade we’ve also seen millennials make their mark on the world. We hear words like “woke”, “bae” and “lit” on a daily basis, while it is estimated that millennials will take 25,700 selfies in their lifetime.* Last year, fidget spinners took over the globe and ever-growing numbers of us are either vegan, obsessed with avocados or downing Starbucks pumpkin spice lattes by the gallon (they weren’t even on the menu in 2008).
As for books that rocked our worlds, in 2011 everyone went BDSM crazy, with Fifty Shadesof Grey setting author EL James on the path to banking £75million. Fast-forward four years and we were all nose-deep in 2015’s Girl on The Train, with almost 2 million copies sold worldwide in the first three months of its release.
Lighting up our telly screens 10 years ago were the desperate housewives of Wisteria Lane, but now it’s the dragons of Westeros. Back then, the film world was buzzing about Juno, and five years later we couldn’t escape Frozen. Now thanks to the Jurassic Park reboot, dinosaurs are cool again, while Star Wars is back after a 10-year break and is bigger, better and cooler than ever.
In the news
Brexit, babies and royal wedding bells
OK, so it hasn’t been the best decade for news. Britain was torn over Brexit, riots broke out across the UK in 2011 after Mark Duggan was shot dead by police in London, and “fake news” is everywhere.
Across the pond, Donald Trump took over from Barack Obama as US president and has continued to wind up North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un with tweets about whose nuclear button is bigger. Yikes.
Sadly, since 2008, terror attacks have shaken us like never before, with London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels and Barcelona among the targets. However the public has bravely stood united against terror, most touchingly in Ariana Grande’s One Love tribute concert in Manchester following the bombing at her gig last year.
But there have been some silver linings. Not only did we celebrate the birth of our future king, Prince George, now four, but also the arrival of his little sister, Princess Charlotte, two, and now there’s another sibling on the way.
Back in 2008, when little-known American actress Meghan Markle had a small role in TV series 90210, who could have predicted she would go on
to get engaged to Britain’s number-one bachelor after Prince Harry popped the question over a roast chicken last November?
And talking of weddings, in 2014 there were celebrations – and wedding bells – across the country when same-sex marriage was finally legalised in England, Wales and Scotland.
In the world of sport, it’s also been an unforgettable decade. Usain Bolt made history by becoming the fastest (and probably coolest) man alive in 2009, Jessica Ennis became everyone’s favourite athlete after winning gold in the heptathlon during the epic 2012 London Olympics, and Team GB did us all proud when they came second in the medal table at the 2016 Rio Games.
Our men’s footie team still hasn’t come close to winning the World Cup – but the ladies came third in 2015. Go, girls!
Politics
From coalitions to Corbyn
We’ve seen a tumultuous 10 years in politics, kicking off with the financial crisis in 2008, which plunged the UK into a five-year recession. In 2010, the Conservative Party won the general election but failed to gain an absolute majority, meaning Tory leader David Cameron headed the first post-war coalition with the Liberal Democrats, led by Nick Clegg.
By 2014 the United Kingdom was proving itself to be anything but, after a referendum was called for Scottish Independence. The Scots only narrowly voted to stay in the UK, with 55% opting to remain. The defeat saw Alex Salmond, then leader of the SNP, resign and his deputy Nicola Sturgeon take office.
While things were looking up for female MPS in July 2014 after Cameron promoted a record eight women into positions at the Cabinet table (although they had to put up with being nicknamed “Cameron’s Cuties”), the PM found himself caught up in Piggate just a year later after rumours surfaced about a certain Oxford Uni “initiation”.
The following year things went from bad to worse for him when voters decided to quit the European Union in another referendum. Despite the Tories’ campaign to stay in the EU, 51.9% of the population voted to leave, causing Cameron to step down as PM. Up next was Britain’s second female leader, Theresa May.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn had been elected as Labour leader in 2015 and slowly began drumming up support among the youth of Britain.
The veggie veteran – who rarely drinks, loves to garden and only got two E-grade A levels – managed to convince millennials to flex their political muscles and even won a surprising flurry of support from the UK grime scene, including rapper Stormzy.
As a result, the 2017 snap general election had the highest turnout in 25 years, with a record number of people signing up on deadline day just hours before registration closed. Impressively, young voters turned out in their masses, with the largest number of 18-24 year olds taking part since 1992.
With 60% of the youth vote backing Corbyn, Labour managed to gain seats for the first time since 1997. Even so, voting still ended in a hung Parliament, forcing May to form a minority government in 2017 with support from the controversial Democratic Unionist Party.
And with the Cabinet’s most recent reshuffle, which saw some senior politicians refuse to move or even quit, who knows what’s going to happen next!
Fashion and beauty
Contouring, CrossFit and khaki
The fickle world of fashion has had many hits and misses since the Noughties, but no one would have guessed that rapper and Kardashian hubby Kanye West would be launching a ready-to-wear collection (with a serious amount of beige).
We’ve endured goth and grunge phases, and it looks like skinny jeans are here to stay, while their frumpier cousin, the mom jean, is back, too.
Hipsters have made beards stylish again, we’re loving berets right now, and who isn’t guilty of sporting athleisure while doing the food shop? Now, instead of trying to channel Kate Moss, we’re all dying to be a Hadid sister, and our favourite fashion icons include six-year-old Harper Beckham – not to mention her mum, Victoria, who’s reinvented herself from faded pop star to full-on fashion designer.
“Fashion trends tend to reappear on a 20-year cycle. For example, the Noughties looked back to the ’80s,” explains Anthony McGrath, fashion expert and lecturer at London’s Fashion Retail Academy.
“There is always a kickback as each generation rebels against the one before, choosing instead the trends from 20 years before. Recently it’s been all about the ’90s, so mom jeans, chokers and sportswear are back on the high street.
"In the next few years, what was fashionable in the Noughties will come back around. Expect lots of long-sleeved wrap-around crop tops and bell-bottoms.”
And in the beauty business, bold eyebrows are now on fleek thanks to model Cara Delevingne, beauty blenders are the must-have make-up tool, and in 2016 we were all blown away by the magic of contouring.
Since 2008, we’ve said goodbye to fad diets such as Atkins and the Master Cleanse. Now it’s all about tasty meals with Joe Wicks’ Lean In 15 and Kayla Itsines’ “bikini body” guide, as well as sweating it out with HIIT or CrossFit sessions – because simply going for a jog is so 2008.
Technology
Appy days
It goes without saying that since Fabulous launched, the world has gone app crazy, with Uber changing the way we get home from the pub since 2011 and Airbnb allowing us to kip in other people’s houses while we vacay.
MySpace – one of the top social media sites in 2008 – is legit ancient, and everyone who is anyone now has an Instagram account following its launch in 2010.
And we can’t forget Snapchat for posting silly pics, WhatsApp for group-chat LOLs, Spotify for listening to great tunes, Tinder for meeting our future husband (or hook-up) and MyFitnessPal for tracking our macros. There is an app for everything!
In 2008, set-top boxes had only recently become mainstream, so recording or pausing live TV still seemed super-exciting (especially if we were too tired to stay up for the season finale of Lost).
Now, streaming service Netflix has taken over our screens (and our lives), with more than 100 million users worldwide tuning in to the likes of Stranger Things, Black Mirror and The Crown.
Wearable tech like Apple Watches and Fitbits were the hip new gizmos of the decade, and we can’t wait to see what comes next. Will it be space tourism? Augmented reality? With the rising popularity of Amazon’s Alexa, our money is on AI robots, and Nick Braund, PHA Media’s head of technology and innovation, agrees.