Torn hair, run-in eyeliner and a crumpled T-shirt: For a few months now, the “Messy Girl” look has not only shaped social networks, but also the street scene. What looks like an expression of liberation at first glance turns out to be far less spontaneous on closer inspection than it seems.
In contrast to the “Clean Girl”, which has dominated with flawless skin, smoothed hair and a thorough appearance and a perfect appearance, including tidied apartment in recent years, the focus is now on a deliberately imperfect aesthetics. The “Messy Girl” – literally the “sloppy girl” – works as if it came directly from a dancing night. The style is reminiscent of a rockier, more unconventional interpretation of female self -expression.
Prominent representatives such as the British singer Charli XCX, who shaped the relative “Brat” trend, or the US artist Billie Eilish transport this aesthetics on stages and on social media. The hashtag #messygirl now lists thousands of views – not least through the song “I’m Too Messy” by Lola Young, which developed into the unofficial hymn of the trend. The viral quiz “Clean Girl or Messy Girl?” For attention and invites you to assign yourself to one of the two aesthetic camps.
However, the look is not completely new. “Between the torn tights of a Courtney Love in the 1990s, the blurred Eyeliner from Amy Winehouse and the festival rubber boots of a Kate Moss in the 2000s and 2010s, this sublimated nonchalance, Sophie Abriat, fashion and luxury expert, explains to the AFP news agency.
“The trend is somewhere between the ‘Soft Grunge’ of the 2010 and the ‘Indie Sleaze’ of the 2000s-a mixture of rock and bohemian style. The difference: Today, every trend is hunted by the filter of the algorithms and re-packed in the form of a hashtag,” continued Abreat.
Staged chaos as a comment on the performance society
But the “Messy Girl” trend goes beyond mere optics-it stages a lifestyle that relies on letting go and self-acceptance. “It is an aesthetics that celebrates the imperfect, the emotional, the chaotic – as a conscious countermovement to the beauty ideals and control mechanisms of the ‘Clean Girl’,” analyzes Abreat. “You could call it a kind of stylized burnout.”
However, this burnout follows its own dramaturgy. As authentic and unaffected, the look may appear, it is often curated as carefully. Tutorials on Tikkok and Instagram show step by step how the supposedly spontaneous make-up or outfit of a “Messy Girl” can be read.
“The staged control of the ‘Clean Girl’ is followed by an equally staged form of authenticity,” explains Claire Roussel, journalist and expert in fashionable currents. Sophie also confirms: “The apparent chaos is often carefully fell – an aesthetic disorder with calculation.”
This orchestrated mess, which is said to be liberating, also does not seem to be accessible to everyone. “You do not find great female emancipation because this trend of white, very thin, hyperheteronormative women is represented, of famousness such as Kate Moss,” emphasizes Claire Roussel. “It is not a trend that thinks of diversity. In this sense, it is not particularly feminist,” she says.
Capture
Even if the “Messy Girl” wants to avoid the dictation of prevailing social norms, it does not escape the risk of being taken up by the fashion and beauty industry. “This is paradoxical: even imperfection can be stylized, marketed and editorially staged – and that understood fashion houses very well,” explains Sophie Abitation.
Especially during the latest Paris Fashion Week for women’s fashion, the influence of the “Indie Sleaze” style was evident: leather, the return of the slim fit pants and statement t-shirts, including a new interpretation of the iconic “J’adore Dior” shirts by ex-creative director John Galliano, numerous collections.
Despite this commercialization, the “Messy Girl” trend brings a freshness that should not be underestimated to a time that is increasingly shaped by reactionary tendencies. “In a phase in which trends such as that of the ‘Tradwives’-i.e. traditional housewife roles-as well as the revival of pro-anorexia content, the ‘Messy Girl’ can be an important counterweight,” emphasizes Claire Roussel. “When people find a style with which they can counteract such hyperconservatives and subliminally misogyny norms, it is extremely positive,” she sums up.
This article was used with digital tools translated.
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