The Chic Paradox: Why Fashion’s ‘Messy’ Trend Ignores Real Hardship

The resurgence of the 'messy' aesthetic has swept through fashion, beauty, and social media, marking a sharp departure from the dominance of quiet luxury and the polished domesticity of figures like Stacey Solomon. In this month’s issue of Elle, Susie Lau highlights how high fashion is celebrating dishevelment, pointing to dirty shirt cuffs and frayed embroidery at Prada, battered handbags at Chanel, and extreme-treated denim at Diesel. This trend extends beyond clothing into beauty and interiors, where morning-after makeup and cluttered spaces are framed as virtues, mirroring broader cultural shifts such as 'goblin mode', 'bed rotting', and the rise of blurred Instagram photo dumps.

This aesthetic rebellion appears to be a reaction against the smooth-edged perfection of AI-generated content and the pressure of self-optimisation. However, Emma Beddington, writing in The Guardian, argues that this celebration of mess is largely superficial. She notes that while the performance of dishevelment is now aspirational, society remains largely intolerant of the actual, unglamorous hardship associated with poverty, illness, and mental health struggles. The distinction lies between sexy, curated unravelling and the repetitive, unphotogenic reality of daily struggle.

The trend coincides with a broader backlash against sobriety and perfection, evidenced by a drinks industry study indicating that 74% of Gen Z are drinking again, an increase from 66% in 2023. Simultaneously, cigarettes have re-entered the fashion sphere, deployed as accessories by celebrities including Kylie Jenner, Dua Lipa, and Hailey Bieber. Yet, Beddington suggests that these visual signifiers of a wild night or a curated tablescape are fundamentally different from the experience of being broke, unwell, or unable to cope with basic domestic tasks.

Kathryn Jezer-Morton, writing in The Cut, reinforces this view by identifying 'struggling' as the last social media taboo. She observes that painful life events, such as breakups or financial trouble, are rarely shared in their raw form. Instead, they are often sanitised into upbeat narratives of progress or handled with polished restraint, partly due to the fiscal imperative of personal brand building in a wobbly economy. The fear of data harvesting by platforms like Meta further discourages users from sharing the pale underbelly of their real lives.

While pockets of raw authenticity exist on fragmented platforms like TikTok and Substack, Beddington remains sceptical that ordinary, grubby mess can ever become truly fashionable. She recalls the early internet era, when users shared unfiltered aspects of their lives, contrasting it with today’s retreat into bland, safe content. Although fashion has historically made unconventional items desirable, such as expensive DHL uniform T-shirts or experimental Japanese garments, Beddington doubts that humdrum, untidy lives will ever achieve timeless chic status.