Fashion is well known to be cyclic. Design is just a subset. Look at the current fashion trends that mimics the 90s and early 2000s and you will see the same pa

Fashion is well known to be cyclic. Design is just a subset. Look at the current fashion trends that mimics the 90s and early 2000s and you will see the same parallels. My theory is that fashion is largely driven by what art people were exposed to when they were young teens. Once they reach a point in their career where they have influence, they try to reimplement it. So kids who cut their tech teeth on skeuomorphic design are now designers themselves and are trying to bring back what they first loved. That is why you see a cycle time of about 20 years.