021: Girlishness. Is Age Just a Number?

DK WOON

— 2 min read
021: Girlishness. Is Age Just a Number?
L-R Clockwise: 1. Miu-Miu AW24 2. Lexie Liu, Ever Anderson and Demi Singleton at Miu-Miu AW24 3. Fan Fiction a Taylor Swift Zine by Tavi Gevinson 4. Tavi Gevinson at home 5. Jennie from Blackpink in Sandy Liang

The zeitgeist seems to be buzzing around youth and girlishness. Not in an 'anti-ageing serum' way, more in a 'let's toy with sophistication like teenagers do' type of way.

TL:DR the topic and aesthetics of 'coming-of-age' are highly relevant for people that are much, much older. Can you play with your age – being simultaneously mature yet curious.

  • Tavi Gevinson (now 28 – let that sink in) has released a zine which considers her relationship with Taylor Swift. If you want more inside info, Vulture interviewed Gevinson about it. It's an obsessive and playful publication that's part fan fiction, part essay and very DIY. It also feels like a very teenage output.

  • One of the hottest brands at the moment is Miu Miu. They topped the Lyst Heat index in Q3 last year, and have just reported a sales jump of 89%. Even if Muccia doesn't look at TikTok, she still gets youth and brings a youthful curiosity. The brand is cresting on a wave of hype, but there's a clear strategy behind the scenes.

  • Shumon Basar recently wrote about the Miu Miu Girl for 032c. It's a clever reading of why Miu Miu resonates with contemporary culture. One of the reasons the finds success is that it reflects the title of Basar's piece – 'Not a Girl. Not Yet a Woman'. The final sentence is a doozy. ShowStudio also dissect this on their YouTube.

  • Alex Quicho elucidates about modern online girlhood in her Wired article 'Everyone Is a Girl Online'. It's theory-dense and aggressively online. Still digesting, but definitely some smart points in there.

  • Cathryn Horyn muses on Taylor Swift's outfits. Last Taylor Swift thing for a while, I promise (we've reached peak Taylor but it's culturally important). TL;DR: "And much of that success is due to the image she projects — of a woman still coming of age, still discovering herself. Any style that’s too sophisticated or eccentric would spoil the illusion, and that goes for her red-carpet and casual attire as well as her stage clothes."

  • Is the #coquettecore symbol of girlishness that is the bow on the way out? Well maybe, but it's OK because Sandy Liang is also about other things. Dazed has an article on her here.

All this ties in with themes of extended adolescence / emerging adulthood. After all, is age becoming just a number? Maturity and physical age are decoupling. Age seems to be simply a palette to play with.

Or as Miu-Miu's FW24 show description puts it:

"Concurrent gestures express different moments in life - they coexist within single outfits, just as we each hold simultaneous memories of our own experience. Evocations of childhood are expressed with deliberately shrunken proportions, cropped sleeves, rounded toed shoes, archetypical clothing types that directly recall those worn in youth. By contrast, adulthood is expressed through recognized signifiers of propriety and chic - gloves and handbags, brooches, tailoring, the little black dress. Childhood is a moment of impulsive, natural rebellion, here reflected in the liberation of a dichotomous mixing of different codifications of dress, pajamas with outerwear, proper with improper, right with wrong. Mnemonic devices, clothes can make us both think back, and project forwards."

p.s. We previously wrote about Obsession vs Detachment which feels thematically related.

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