If you've spent any time on social media over the last five years, you have likely seen an influx of trends and aesthetics that seem like they change on a weekly basis. Navigating social media trends can feel infinite, lawless, and oftentimes demanding. You find yourself questioning your ability to relate in the modern cultural landscape with its endless information, rapid turnover rate and infinite options. What began as simply identifying niche styles like cottage core and dark academia has grown to include sub-aesthetical movements like eclectic grandpa, coquette, and clean girl. How did cable knit sweaters all of a sudden become “Rory Gilmore-coded?” …and how is a Rory Gilmore sweater different from a normal sweater? While at first these trends might sound like the world’s worst mad lib, once you understand them, they present a fun and revelatory way to categorize and define your sense of style, interior design trends, and even human behavior.
If you’re curious about what’s driving trending aesthetics, we’re here to both help you decipher them through literary terms and empower you to better utilize them in how you identify and communicate styles.
It helps to understand that using the word “aesthetic” to define a style simply infers that its meaning is multifaceted.
An aesthetic fuses fashion, art, culture, literature, interior design, and media into one visual representation. Which is why it can be so difficult to grasp the meaning of trending aesthetics. As the understanding of aesthetics has evolved, the references have gotten even more specific, with titles like Meg Ryan Fall and Birkin Mom. These trending references are mostly modern typecasting - a fancy way of saying “self-labeling.” All of these labels–some fleeting, some timeless–are ways we categorize the world around us in order to both better differentiate apparent trends and begin to understand how we relate to one another. If this sounds familiar, it's because trends like “coastal cowgirl” and “grand millennial” are similar in structure to other means of self-identification, whether they be horoscopes, Hogwarts houses, or Myers-Briggs results. Some trends you’re born into, some you choose, and some can be tested against socially-shaped ‘requirements’ that you either do or do not meet.
What’s interesting about these trends is that many (if not all) originate in cultural movements. They emerge in reaction to politics, disaster, or even the stock market. For example, the rise of academia aesthetics can be attributed to the fantasizing of school when the 2020 pandemic prevented many youth from going. The girlhood trend was a result of celebrating female representation in a time of political upheaval due to the overturn of Roe v. Wade. This fall, we’re most likely going to see a push back on micro trends and maximalism for more basic and simplistic wardrobes as we face economic uncertainty with the election and inflation rates.
But, what do all the current trends mean and why should you care?
The shortest answer is because it’s fun and you might just learn a thing or two about yourself. The long answer is because these modern aesthetics can feel like little pieces of history, it’s never really “just” about fashion. It’s the result of the human reaction to social, economic, and political shifts, what initially appears to be frivolous and fun ways to self-identify are actually highly sensitive indicators of how we, as a culture, are feeling about and responding to the constantly changing events of our modern world.
The B&G Literary Trend Matrix
In honor of our beloved bibliophile community, our in-house trend forecaster, Sarah Grace Acker, helped us curate a comprehensive matrix which beautifully plots some of our favorite trends from the last several months alongside books and characters you know and love. The matrix can serve as a visual tool for how to identify modern aesthetics. You’ll find “brat” intermixed with some of your favorite titles, brands, and pop culture moments to help make sense of the current trend landscape.
