America’s Next Top Trendy Animal

Owls and deer have been omnipresent for a fashion eon, with twee little strigiformes popping up in jewelry, housewares, prints, whatever. They’re almost mascots for bright young shoppers busy feathering their (studio apartment) nests or walking blithely into traffic with headphones at maximum volume.

The craze is ebbing, though;  our pellet-hacking/headlight-staring friends are on everything, and ubiquity is the surest sign of an inevitable backlash from the hipper-than-thou. But when owls and deer have been ruled passe, which animals will emerge on top of the knick-knack food chain? As fashion riffles through the animal kingdom rolodex, I’m counting down the most likely successors.

Cooperative Sleeveless Cotton Sundress (in whale), Urban Outfitters, $48

1. Whales

Fins and blowholes are surfacing on dresses, necklaces, and home decor. Clearly some people weren’t scarred as children by repeated viewings of Pinocchio or the requisite high school struggle through Moby Dick. Urban Outfitters is emblazoning Shamu on sundresses (above) and beaching him on ash trays…

…while ModCloth takes a more literal route, plastering whales on (really ugly) tees.

Thanks to those Mods you can even use Monstro as a purse: searching for your keys takes on a whole new meaning when you have to dig through a whale stomach. Meanwhile, Etsy has a whole pod of whale products (no blubber, unfortunately), ranging from the cute to the oh God, no. Yes, that is a figurine depicting of Jonah’s little whale encounter and, yes, it is sparkly.

My Pet Octopus Necklace, ModCloth, $14.99

2. Octopuses

Last year ModCloth kept trying to lure me from Facebook with ads featuring a fantastic, wonderfully mollusk-y octopus necklace. I had to hand it to Facebook: that ad did seem perfectly tailored to my coinciding interests in internet shopping and sea monsters. I never bought the fellow, but I clicked on that ad almost every time he showed up to wriggle his arms next to so-and-so’s profile. The octopus (or maybe his cousin) still swims today on ModCloth (above) but now he’s been joined by cuffs and rings.

If you’re in the market for a chandelier and also a sucker for suction cups, Philly designer Adam Wallacavage makes beautiful, tentacle-y octopus chandeliers.

For the rest of us, there’s always the octopus dish scrubber.

That Darn Cat Pillow, Urban Outfitters, $28 (please only use ironically)

3. Cats

If you’re in that awkward age between, say, ten and sixty when it’s largely inappropriate to wear cats emblazoned on your clothes and still want to proudly advertise your status as a long-time member of the Cat Fancier’s Association (although, trust me, the hair on your clothes is kind of a giveaway), look no further than Urban Outfitters, which has a plethora of feline products. Cat rings, ironic pillows (above), and, yes, even a cat butt pencil sharpener (I for one not sure how I’ve survived fifteen years of education without that one ).

Anthropologie sells cat and mouse earrings and Etsy has enough gratuitous cat porn to satisfy even your spinster aunt.

And if you’re of a certain ilk, hideous cat t-shirts are apparently a wardrobe staple.

Thanks, Mr. Narwhal!

4. Narwhals

Don’t even try to put these babies in the same category as whales. The horn just puts them on a whole other plane of nautical awesome.

ModCloth had a largely inadequate narwhal necklace (seriously, what is that pathetic horn?) but it sold out. Apparently demand for the  unicorn of the sea is high.

Never fear, you can always knit your own narwhal. Make me one too, okay? I’m practically the only person I know who survived 2006’s knitting craze without knowing how to knit scarves, much less my favorite arctic sea creature.

There we have it: sea creatures and house cats, successors of the deer-owl hegemony. Thanks to UO, Etsy, ModCloth and a zillion Tumblr posts for helping us honor the pets we have—and the pets we wish we had—in clothes, jewelry and shit we probably didn’t need anyway. And if reckless internet shopping doesn’t tickle your fins, there’s always Sea World.