Tennis Girl Summer, Parisian Girl Summer, Cool Girl Summer. Which persona do you want to take on for the next two months? You better buy new clothes, adopt a new personality, and change your likes and hobbies for the season.
These names all describe the micro-trends that have consumed the fashion world. During the pandemic, the advent of ‘micro-trends’ rose in popularity – when everyone was attached to their screens and the only thing we consumed were constant flows of fast-media. That was the birthplace of micro trends: short bursts of trending aesthetics fueled by on-the-nose nicknames. Ashley Y. Lee sums up their short-lived nature in the Harvard Crimson: “Microtrends are cycles of short-lived trends that gain a high amount of attention in a fairly short period outside of traditional trend cycles, and then fall off the grid and lose public relevance almost just as quickly.” They are meant to be consumed for a few months, before the pieces become as easily irrelevant and thrown away, off to a landfill, never to be seen again.
The most prominent micro-trends that have appeared in the last few years are the old-money aesthetic, the plethora of -cores, and the newest summer-oriented ones. They’re all equally identifiable, with clear patterns and aesthetics. With their abundance came the growth of old-money, mob-wife, etc influencers, all catering toward women.
These trends are all a byproduct of the misogyny behind trends like ‘girl math’ – the labels and titles given to reduce women to a singular idea. Some may say this is a stretch, but I say everything is connected to the patriarchy in some way. The misogyny behind girl math – the demeaning of women into easy-to-digest ideas – fuels women to force themselves into a singular, identifiable label. Women continue to make themselves easily-consumable, to avoid the complexities that come with real identities apart from what the internet dictates.
It’s the cycling of these trends that allows for overconsumption to continue to proliferate markets. Fast fashion brands catch on to these trends and create cheap clothes meant to last only the duration of the trends – that is, a season at most. And in a few months, thrift stores will be filled with these old pieces, their owner having moved on to something new.
Now, with all of these new -cores and aesthetics and [blank] girls, nobody has a mind of their own, a style of their own. Everybody can adopt what they see on Pinterest after typing in two words, buy another’s closet, and wear it for a few months before throwing it away. Inspiration is no longer inspiration, instead it’s something to copy, something to mimic. Style and personal identity have been replaced by these reductions.
Moral of the story: be your own kind of girl. Not the one that can be placed inside a two-word box. At least until fall.