Calling All Y2K Nostalgists: Limited Too Is Back Thanks to... Coconut Water?

Thanks to Vita Coco’s new creamsicle-flavored coconut water, you can browse baby tees from the Y2K retailer like it’s 2003

I can’t pinpoint exactly when Y2K nostalgia became the go-to marketing move for brands, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t work on me, a millennial with a soft spot for HitClips and Cold Stone Creamery. So while I wasn’t surprised when I learned that Vita Coco decided to lean into a Y2K theme for a product launch event this weekend — the brand was born in 2003, after all — I was starstruck to learn that the event will also entail a brief resuscitation of another aughts icon: Limited Too.

If you’re new to the lore of Limited Too, welcome. The tween clothing and lifestyle retailer was popular in the 90s and 2000s, and beloved by mall-bound kids for its cropped hoodies, flared jeans, and other Y2K fashion staples.This Friday and Saturday, from noon to 6 p.m. in New York City’s Union Square, Vita Coco will be formally launching its Orange & Creme coconut milk drink nationwide in the context of a peak-2000s-mall-culture set-up complete with a 2000s photo booth, pop-up “food court,” and a micro Limited Too storefront/station with co-branded tees that will strive to recapture the glory years of the brand.

The launch was cooked up with Eventbrite, which I’ve noticed has really been amping up its creativity lately with brand partnerships (it recently hosted a delightfully unhinged cheese rave with Queer Eye’s Antoni Porowski in Bushwick). Vita Coco describes its new Orange & Creme coconut milk drink as an ultra-creamy, coconut milk-based nod to the classic creamsicle, and says that it’s part of the expansion of its Treats line, which also includes a Strawberries & Creme flavor.

Orange flavoring in general was such a big part of the 2000s, from Kenan & Kel’s orange soda obsession to Tang orangutan commercials that still haunt my dreams — so the Y2K theme feels appropriate enough. But the whisper of Limited Too sends me over the edge. As a preteen growing up in Southern California, Limited Too was my version of the Pearly Gates. It felt more grown up than Claire’s, albeit not as intimidating as Afterthoughts. It made legions of braces-wearing teens feel like Natalie Imbruglia long before they could ever resonate with her lyrics, “I’m cold and I am shamed/ Lying naked on the floor,” simply by trusting them with the power of a pair of sparkly camouflage jeans. And perhaps that was the magic of Limited Too [stomps out cigarette]; it indulged us all with a fantasy of being grown up that felt a lot more like The Lizzie McGuire Movie than, say, figuring out how to file an extension on your taxes. No wonder people miss it.

This isn’t the first time Limited Too, which shuttered in 2008 in the aftermath of the recession, has been revived. Kohl’s announced that it would be reintroducing the brand in 2024 to much internet fanfare, but the results were a disappointing stream of merch that lacked any cheekiness (exorbitant glitter) and panache (lace-up low-rise jeans) of the original brand. It will be interesting to see if Vita Coco has learned from this debacle with its own small but mighty collaboration, and to see just how much it leans into the original identity of the brand that means so much to millennials.

Maybe you can never go home again. But this week, New Yorkers can at least go to Limited Too — and I hope that for all of our sakes, but especially the rage-bait millennial corners of Reddit, that it holds its own.

Learn more about Vita Coco’s pop-up in NYC’s Union Square this weekend here.