RBD’s Comeback Tour Is A Y2K Fashion Celebration

Ever since RBD, the Mexican band born out of the Televisa telenovela Rebelde in the early 2000s, broke up, fan Migdalia Sanchez had been eagerly waiting for a comeback. “I never got to see them live,” she tells Refinery29. She first fell in love with RBD through the novela, but it was the style of Anahí, the actress behind Rebelde’s leading character Mia Colucci and RBD singer, that hooked her into a lifelong fandom. “I related more with Mia Colucci because she was so girly,” she says. “It was a statement; she wanted to be the It Girl.”

This fall, Sanchez and thousands of other longtime fans will get a chance to step back in time for RBD’s comeback tour, which began in late August, as band members Anahí, Dulce María, Maite Perroni, Christian Chávez, and Christopher Uckermann reunite on stage. And they’ll have the fits to mark this moment. “That was immediately my first thought, ‘What am I going to wear?’” Sanchez admits.

The RBD and Rebelde phenomena had an official outfit formula that’s as iconic as their plotlines and musical hits. It was all rooted in the unrealistic uniform of the Elite Way School, an exclusive boarding school in Mexico where the novela takes place, which consisted of a white button-down shirt, red blazer, red necktie, denim mini skirt, and black knee-high boots. For seasons two and three, the uniform got a makeover, switching to darker colors like black, maroon, brown and adding a beret and suspenders as accessories. 

Yet, all iterations consisted of the same outfit formula — a top, mini skirt, and boots — inspired by Y2K trends reigning at the time, making it the de facto uniform of Rebelde fans everywhere. 

So it was no surprise that when RBD made its debut as part of the novela’s universe, with their first album dropping in 2004, the band adopted the school’s signature uniform with a twist. Anahí, for example, wore neckties as belts, while Dulce María, who played Roberta in Rebelde, switched the knee-high boots for combat boots and traded the fitted white-button down for lace corsets. There was also a heavy fusion of pop punk aesthetics and Western fashion, with the band wearing cowboy hats and boots, paired with corsets and low-rise jeans. And as the telenovela finished its run, its sartorial aesthetic carried on as RBD continued to play on stage until 2008. 

The band’s comeback means the fandom is also ready to head back to school — in their own way. On TikTok, searches for “rbd concert outfit ideas” have grown over 12 million views. “I've seen so many videos of people already like connecting, making bracelets, sharing outfits,” Sanchez says, who also shared a few videos of outfit ideas prior to the tour’s start last week. “We're all going to be there together reliving our childhood together.” Following the tour’s start on August 25, creators also took to TikTok to share the street style at the tour stop in El Paso, Texas. From modern iterations of the Rebelde uniform to vintage RBD merch and Y2K-inspired fashion, the crowd at the first few shows has taken RBD’s outfit formula to heart, giving the classic a modern spin. White button-down shirts were paired with leather harnesses, while uniform-like ensembles were accessorized with cowboy hats. Looking at videos on TikTok, the crowds are a sea of red, white, and black — the official color palette of RBD and Rebelde. 

Another RBD fan ready to play dress up is Monica Mendoza. The 30-year-old Arizona native first saw RBD live in Tucson when she was 14 years old. “It was the first concert I ever went to,” she says. For her, this comeback tour brings back memories of coming home to watch Rebelde with her sister, admiring Mia Colucci’s signature style. “I loved her uniform with the tulle underneath to make it more girly and the pink Razr on her boot,” she says. 

As Mendoza gears up to see RBD live 15 years later, she says she’s most excited to let her inner child live up her Rebelde fashion fantasies. “A lot of us were so young when RBD first started, so at the time we may not have had the resources to go to the concert or wear the clothes that we wanted to,” she says. “Now I'm kind of just being able to relive that.” She has big plans for her RBD concert outfit: “Just all the sparkles,” she says, adding that her outfit will be inspired by Anahí’s on-stage style in the band’s Y2K era, which included star-shaped stickers and bedazzled accessories. 

Sanchez is also planning to channel Anahí’s style. “I think I do want to give that tribute to her because she was my favorite and she was the one that inspired a lot of my outfits when I was younger,” she says. Since she bought her tickets in the spring, Sanchez says she’s been researching Anahí and her character Mia’s styles, which include tiara-like bedazzled headbands and Barbiecore pink,  to see how she can pay her respects with her outfits. “[I’ve seen] so many girls adding their own little twist and it still looks like Rebelde, but it's not the uniform,” she says of the outfits she’s seen on TikTok, where she’s getting inspiration before the band’s shows in Los Angeles. “Still, it’s the skirt and the boots — just with a little twist.”

For now, Sanchez only has one thing certain about her outfit: “It’ll definitely be a mini skirt and boots.”