her softer side.” Her campaign with Swarovski replicates vintage poise
with mesh opera gloves and soft, natural makeup. The celebrity, once
famous for thigh-high boots, severe ponytails, and bright jewel tones
now sports pastel baby blues and delicate flower motif jewelry. Styled
with soft, downturned brows, button-nose contour and upturned winged
lash extensions, the no-makeup makeup emphasizes a youthful yet sultry
appearance. Photo illustration by Dakota Duran / SF Foghorn
On one night out in North Beach, a girl will see more cowboy boots than if she’d stumbled into an old Western. Paired with chic slick back buns and pink mini skirts, the look is clean, elegant and tastes unmistakably conservative. As the Oval Office grows ostentatiously gold-clad, so too are young American women. Whether intentionally or not, America’s youth is embracing conservative social trends, none more visible than in fashion.
Since Donald Trump’s takeover of the White House and domination in major media, style has leaned into the refined, vintage and Americana. Women’s fashion in particular has adopted a hyper feminine, almost babyish aesthetic. This shift is made evident by popular singers and actresses, as Sabrina Carpenter embraces a blonde bouffant and 1960s babydoll silhouettes while Ariana Grande is jewel laden and doe eyed, á lá Audrey Hepburn. This return to familiar American iconography in fashion is overwhelmingly white coded and wealth oriented, sold with taglines like “clean girl” and “old money aesthetic.” Online content creators have created a burgeoning movement in fashion towards the new American ideal; one in which the woman is a hyper-feminine sex kitten; a soft, aspirational ideal whose ultimate ambition isn’t independence, but rather a wealthy husband.
Social media is the clearest indication of this trend, where women like Nara Smith and Ballerina Farm thrive, making a living off hyper curated and idealized depictions of domestic life, all while wearing cotton dresses with sailor collars and soft, girlish makeup. The goal is, it seems, to look both as young and as sexy as possible. Instagram comments bash photos of actresses thirty and up for “aging poorly,” and the prevalence of cosmetic surgery and weight loss injections fuel a beauty standard of hyper-thin women with upturned noses and pink blush. Adult women increasingly resemble teenagers or little girls, and recent hyper-capitalist trends of toy consumerism (ie. Sonny Angels, Labubus, the Starbucks Bearista and Jellycats) all corroborate towards America’s collective infantilization of women.
I love classic fashion, and while the boots made famous by Clint Eastwood and Paul Newman are adopted by young women, I take pause to consider what message I want my clothes to send. As the opaque multicolored pantyhose of the 70s proliferates Pinterest and nostalgic bubbly pink frills flood Instagram, I seem to wonder how much of our interpretation of “femininity” is political insignia in disguise. Can we ignore that as conservatives strip away women’s bodily rights and reclassify female dominated fields as “unprofessional,” women’s fashion grows increasingly sanguine and childish?
Popular retailers like Target, Urban Outfitters and Brandy Melville consistently turn out collections stamped with pink bows, teddy bears and all things innocent and cute. Phrases like “girl math” and “girl dinner” go viral, reinforcing stereotypes of women as fiscally irrational and helplessly childish. Many will remember the trend of adult women online adopting a baby voice and defending mistakes or incompetence with a coy, “I’m just a girl!” as though stupidity were a charming, girlish quirk.
To be clear, liking pink or wearing twintails is not the problem. I don’t intend to demean anyone who enjoys feminine or vintage aesthetics; I often do myself. But a pause is necessary. The harm begins when we allow fashion to transcend clothes, when it becomes fashionable to demean oneself or imply stupidity. Young, girlish fashion that infantilizes, that speaks to the conservative want for incapable women is not just an image; our language is influenced, our ideals. As femininity is increasingly equated to childishness and immaturity, our fashion becomes political. We should reconsider what we advocate for by promoting adult women who sell this new feminine ideal. That babydoll dress speaks louder than we may care to admit. And before the next time we imitate the heavy blush and upturned nose, all we might consider as the new aestheticized Lolita, ask why “young and innocent” is the standard. Ask yourself whether your autonomy and America’s trending vintage, childlike fashion may be a conflict of interest.
