TikTok Clothing Trends

are like the Blue Fairy Book.

Lately I’m finding it tricky to figure out what to wear.

It used to be the case that I could at least get a vague sense of what was in style by looking at the people around me. At least, I could get a sense of what was in style for the milieu I found myself in. In high school it was maxi skirts on Sundays, the fitted shirts that were accidentally listed on the uniform list at school, and bootcut jeans (inexplicably) for my Irish dance class. In college, the general rule was that you just had to be less weird than the person who was wearing a Lord of the Rings cape to class, but the really cool girls had Vera Bradley lanyards, and the girls who pretended they were cooler than those girls but were actually less cool (myself included) wore skinny jeans and ankle booties.

Nowadays I know I’m not supposed to wear skinny jeans and ankle booties, but I frequently find myself at a loss beyond that. Thanks to TikTok and its series of derivative culture machines—usually Instagram Reels first, then YouTube Shorts, and then Facebook’s. . . . videos? serving the dregs of the rest—fashion trends are now “microtrends,” moving at the speed of light. British Vogue’s roundup of 2023 “TikTok aesthetics” included quiet luxury (also known as “stealth wealth”), Barbiecore, mermaidcore, Europecore, and “tomato girl summer” (not dressing like a tomato, but dressing in white like you aren’t afraid to eat tomatoes). This year we’ve seen mob wife, coastal grandmother, coastal granddaughter, tenniscore, and (I can’t make this up) eclectic grandpa. (Big grandparent summer.)