I find that my new idea of a “cool girl” doesn’t exude that icy, unattainable coolness anymore, but rather an accessible warmth. They don’t resist the inevitability of aging, they are highly self-aware, honest, kind. They know life is short and they can laugh at the absurdity of it all!

Right now the most valuable currency in the aspiration economy is newness, novelty and youth. Marketing and advertising, especially across fashion, is all about selling a lifestyle and image for your current self. Future chronological chapters of your life are deemed irrelevant. But these partnerships challenge that assumption. They sell the idea t... See more

It makes sense that norms are shifting in this direction as Gen Z’s influence spreads. Raised on social media, with access to once illicit bad-taste touchstones like Rocky Horror just a click away, they’ve largely replaced IRL subcultures with a constellation of aesthetics—cottagecore, dark academia, Y2K—to be performed, then discarded or demoted t... See more