by LETICIA GARCIA & PATRICIA RODRIGUEZ
Runways, influencers, and fast fashion are embracing an image that discreetly evokes a reactionary feminine ideal — and the look is proving seductive to younger generations
“Quiet luxury hinted at fatigue of the loud, anything-goes culture of the previous decade. Many women were simply tired of being told ‘sex sells’ or that empowerment means ever-shrinking hemlines. Quality over quantity, tradition, subtlety — these were back in vogue.”
The passage could have appeared in an old book about the perfect woman, but it actually comes from an April article titled How Fashion Predicted A Trump Triumph in the magazine Evie, a fashion and lifestyle publication that embraces and espouses conservative values. The influence of Evie in the United States has led even The New York Times to dedicate an extensive profile to its founder, Brittany Martinez.
The magazine is not the only one to have explored the links between fashion and reactionary shifts. A quick search on the subject pulls up dozens of articles in publications that are hardly MAGA. “If anyone says I didn’t know our country was going down a conservative path, I would ask you, have you been on the internet in the past four years at all?” joked TikToker Lindsey Louise in a viral video posted after the last presidential election.
looking at trends, it has be obvious our climate was moving conservative for years, i wrote about this on my substack and i honestly could talk about this forever lol. from everything wellness to trad wife content to old money aesthetic to the constant need to be “edgy” we have seen the shift in culture online. also i note that some of these concepts have been taken from indigenous cultures and were constructed into ytness and “ luxury “ rebrand.
ffashiontrendsffashiontiktokssocialmediap#politics?
original sound – lindsey louise
Fashion is not just about clothes, as sociologist Diana Crane points out in her 2000 book Fashion and its Social Agenda. Rather, she says, it is a reflection of our norms and cultural values. As such, it has the potential to influence social attitudes towards body image and beauty standards.
The idea is perfectly applicable a quarter-century after her book’s publication. In recent years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, a series of aesthetics inspired either by nostalgia or by the archetype of the billionaires have taken hold. From floral dresses meant to evoke a bucolic shepherdess, to beige suits that could be worn by Siobhan Roy in Succession, or the flawless (and highly desirable, like a donut) face with a slicked-back bun of Hailey Bieber and her followers.
At first glance, these elements might seem unrelated, if not for the fact that a deeper reading of these macro-trends reveals a kind of pursuit of perfectionism and discretion that fits like a glove with more conservative values.
“If we want to understand current trends, we can observe what is happening in the world in political terms,” reflects Daphné B., cultural journalist and author of Made-Up: A True Story of Beauty Culture Under Late Capitalism. “There has been an obvious rise of the ultra-right, in Europe as well as the United States. In consequence, the values and aesthetic of conservative movements are appreciated, because they are those closest to power.”
Tags like #coquette, #cleangirl and #oldmoney now belong to the general slang of young people; so do words like Ozempic, tradwife and the lamentable “classic chic.”
El Pais for more