clean girl and the rise of conservatism
Dear reader,
If you’ve been on the internet these past few months you are likely to have been forcefully well acquainted with the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic and if you’ve had access to the internet you have probably already heard the term be think-pieced to death as one of the 4 horsemen of the upcoming fascist apocalypse and you were probably expecting me to do the same which I will but since I love being different rather than analyzing the clean girl aesthetic it self i’ll analyze the multitude of way fashion shows us the socio-political state of the world.
Fashion is often thought of as a trivial thing in throughout history,as many things associated with femininity often are despite it being one of the oldest forms of expression and one of the most prevalent forms of visual expression, fashion has been used to display various things throughout history ranging from things like political beliefs to emotions left unspoken. One of the most iconic examples of such a fashion being used in such in a way being the punk movement. a movement consisting of mostly young people with leftist beliefs which contrasted drastically to the more conservative ideals the time including non-conformity, anti-capitalism, and anti-consumerism.
A well-known and loved punk icon is the fashion designer Vivienne WestWood, known for her bold use of patterns and gorgeous jewellery designs. But being punk was never just sketchered patterns or spiky hair it was also incorporating your politics in how you dressed punks wore clothes with purposefully spiky and edgy elements to deflect from the softer groovy look of the seventies, they wore accessories associated with controversial sexual elements such as BDSM and S&M such as dog collars and leathers and made most of their clothes themselves with common items used being razors and safety pins.
And the style isn’t a dead one either as recently as 2020 a new life was breathed into the style through the alt-craze, with the diy, spikey and edgy elements being incorporated into the 2020s ‘alt’ aesthetic with new elements such as bright neon coloured hair and insanely short skirts being thrown into the mix.
So know that we understand how fashion can be political lets talk about clean girl and what fashion can tells us about the political state of a country through the previously mentioned infamous clean girl aesthetic. The fashion style first gained roots in late 2023 and blossomed in 2024, after the alt/punk wave of the early 2020s, the clean girl aesthetic was the exact opposite sleek, monochromatic and well clean, this new aesthetic wasn’t hear to challenge like it’s predecessors were it was hear to conform.
The clean girl aesthetic perfectly encapsulates the conservative ideals that were once again becoming popular. Promoting minimal looks with lavish spending the aesthetic bought into the ideas of consumerism and conformity the fashion before it fought against. It actively looks down upon self-expression in fashion as dirty through pushing the idea that bold colours and cute patterns make you look cheap while also selling the idea that not wearing a face mask every night will make you look old.
It sells conservative ideas to youth by quietly pushing for all them to look the same, and while everything I may sound like I’m reading to deep into a simple aesthetic look around you tell me that you haven’t seen the shift? From Trump winning the American elections to teens bullying other teens to death for looking different, to ‘pretty little things’ shifting from bbl fashion to clean girl looks conservatism is on the rise everywhere and the fashion is reflecting that. Because just like fashion politics is cyclical and now leftism is out and right wing extremism is in.
Sincerely, yours