Being weird is the new cool: more and more fashion-loving people love to dress weird on purpose and cause irritation with their looks. Fashion is moving further and further away from strict fashion rules and classic styling combinations. This can be observed on the catwalks of well-known fashion brands, but also on the Instagram profiles of the stars.
Behind the weird trend is the courage to be unconventional, to want to attract attention, to not conform to the norm. Instead of following classic ideals of beauty, celebrities like singer Noah Cyrus (23) or model Ella Emhoff (24), the stepdaughter of US Vice President Kamala Harris (58), have the courage to be ugly.
The young women wear the strangest outfit combinations in public. But the weird trend doesn’t stop at the clothes: while one seems to wear little make-up on purpose, the other plays with extravagant make-up to stand out from the crowd.
Real “weird girls” celebrate everything that is completely out of the ordinary when it comes to fashion. On the one hand, everything that doesn’t go together at first glance can be combined. Instead of emphasizing classic elegance, this trend, which is particularly popular with Generation Z, focuses on individual style that knows no bounds.
Many associate the development towards strange, unusual styling with the pandemic. The online magazine “Byrdie”, for example, suspects that the isolation of the lockdowns has enabled many young people to invest more time in their personal style – without any external pressure from society. The “weird girl aesthetic” is the counter-movement to the “clean girl era” that took hold on social media after the lockdown.
But is the “weird trend” actually something new? If you look at the fashion world objectively, there have always been “strange” looks, such as those from the Gothic subculture. But it now seems that social media such as TikTok and Instagram are making them more visible.
