The Internet’s Beloved “Sad Girl” Style and Modern Feminism
Photo by Julian Hamilton
I’ve been tearing around in my fucking nightgown, 24/7 Sylvia Plath
- Lana Del Rey, “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but I have it”
What Is “Coquette”?
As with most internet terms, the word “coquette” takes on a myriad of meanings. From flirtatious to feminine to hyper-sexualized, the subculture has positioned itself as statement-heavy. Perhaps it is more neatly defined by its core visual elements: pearls, bows, lace, hues of pink and red, and an abundance of jewelry.
With internet subcultures at an all-time high, fashion is largely influenced by cultural elements like music and generational attitudes. This niche aesthetic is perfectly positioned at the intersection of internet culture, fashion, and feminism, making it a curious phenomenon. “Coquette”, while a recent resurgence, actually dates back to the Victorian era and sought to define one of the first “femme fatale” archetypes. It referred to women as “seductresses” who were intimidating due to their emotiveness via their very pronounced fashion and knowledge base.
Photo by Emma Swindell
In this emerging era of 2020’s “coquette”, there is an evident fetishization of hysteria and hyper-femininity. The style defines much more than clothing and interior design, but a lifestyle, tied by a ribbon of catharsis and covert naivete. The style plays heavily on juxtaposition, pairing youthful and innocent visuals with cynical elements and undertones. This picturesque representation of girlhood seeks to showcase the true inner nature of femme people— longing for the days of delicate youth, burdened by the despair of modern-day society, and on the pursuit of comfort and confinement. For this reason, “coquette” media is often dependent on the most casual setting, a frilly bedroom with silk or floral sheets, vanity desks and cluttered makeup, diaries, and stacks of well-loved books and music.
Photo by Julian Hamilton
After all, there is nothing truer than a girl left to her own devices in her bedroom. It is where we first learned to play, weep, and revel.
Misery Media: Movies, Books, Music
Photo by Emma Swindell
As we enter the fourth wave of feminism (the first wave to be truly informed by technology), there is a gravitation toward more visually distinct and intersectionality-informed styles both built from and built for the likes of social media. The short-form video app, TikTok, in particular, has seen a fascination with femme works that explore themes of depression and mental illness, resentment toward male behavior/tendencies, unfiltered sexuality, and unapologetic “girliness”, etc.
“Sad girl” music like that of Mitski, Melanie Martinez, Phoebe Bridgers, and Gracie Abrams, depressing feminist literature titles like The Bell Jar, Girl, Interrupted, The Virgin Suicides, and scenic films on women’s experiences like Priscilla (2023), Lady Bird (2017), Spencer (2021), etc. have consequently birthed a reformed “coquette” aesthetic artistically resuscitated from its Victorian roots and complete with cultural references. No “coquette” room is finished without an Ultraviolence (2014) poster or a copy of Otessa Moshfegh’s novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation.
Photo by Julian Hamilton
The fascination with the deterioration of mental health and the aesthetics of feminine pain, namely that which is caused by or perpetuated by men (as in works like Lolita), intensely informs the "sad girl" style. In popular media, this obsession has been named “disassociative feminism”. The term refers to an eery and omniscient lens through which we visualize femme pain.
In media that centers on “disassociative feminism”, the audience is most moved by the suffering of the femme character and more importantly, how they look amid their suffering. This is denoted by the character’s lack of aversion to their tumult. Rather than fighting off negative emotions, the character succumbs entirely, subjecting themselves to a wallowing so potent that it is performative in even aesthetics. Writer, Emmeline Clein, refers to this expression as a “curdling of the hyperoptimistic, #girlboss”. Thus, this seems to be a culturally combative response to the previous wave of feminist style.
Photo by Julian Hamilton
A fascinating aspect of this phenomenon is how it was both popularized and criticized by subcommunities on TikTok. The cis male side of TikTok tends to misunderstand “coquette” and the reasoning behind it. The emotional implications behind this expressive style seem incomprehensible to those with a limited understanding of the fashion world and the femme psyche because of the nuanced perspective it is grounded in. This fashion niche is a form of narration for a feminine rage so strong it reverts back into itself dressed in unassuming ruffles and embellished with tea gloves. It is a reinstallment of the way women were once expected to dress, dantily. This softness is now being reclaimed by the oppressed group through their own volition.
Fashion As A Spectacle For The Male Gaze
While partakers are adorning themselves in baby pink silk gowns and ballet skirts for internal gratification and self-expression, there is much controversy around its interplay with male desires and male flaws. For instance, much of this subculture was ironically built from the decorative prose and visuals of Nabokov’s novel, Lolita (in which a predatory man sexually abuses his step-daughter). More specifically, from the adoration the public had toward Adrian Lyne’s 1997 film adaptation which has, in recent years, caught the attention of the fem-presenting Gen Z population over TikTok.
Conversations around the history of women’s clothing and its inherent ties to the male gaze have been at the forefront of fashion theory long before the construction of the “coquette” aesthetic. However, the origins of this particular style make it inherently riddled with these questions. Can intentionally playing into the male gaze to such a hyperbolic degree ultimately spite the male gaze? Is painting a portrait of male-perpetuated pain reclamation, or is it still a fetishization of hurt? This begs the question, where exactly does this subculture fit into modern feminism? Moreover, does this subculture fit into modern feminism? On the one hand, the style has complete disregard for the modern likes of men. Many masc-presenting people find the style strange and disconcerting. On the other hand, it continues a male-initiated cycle of stuffing women into emotional snowglobes through their clothing and all the while, urging them to be victims of capitalism.
Obsession in Eurocentric Style is Anti-Feminist
The “sad girl” style is crafted around an unattainable level of delicateness, breeding obsession. Its cover girls are perfectly undone and perfectly done up as the situation necessitates. Anyone who doesn’t fit into this perceived youth and vulnerability is curbed from its romanticization. This aesthetic is exclusionary and euro-centric by nature, as BIPOC have been victims of the propagandistic notion that they are more aggressive and consequently, are often not perceived as elegant. It requires much more constraint to achieve this idealized softness. The ability to “elegantly” be in pain is a twisted luxury that most are not provided under the societal standards this trend propels.
Photo by Emma Swindell
Additionally, the trend rewards thinness, as it is perceived as more delicate due to the body looking more fragile. To complicate things further, there is an additional layer of unhealthy glamorization: thinness is also representative of the physical byproduct of mental illnesses like anorexia, bulimia, depression, etc. In this way, the style romanticizes being ill both in mind and body, which circles back to the issue of molding pain to be visually attractive. Not only is suffering needed to achieve this beauty, but beauty is found in the multilateral suffering itself.
Photo by Emma Swindell
Obsession is also embedded into the internet’s version of “coquette” through its resignation to consumerism. Users showcase a fixation on superficiality with very specific products. A few: Rare Beauty Soft Pinch Liquid Blush, Miss Dior perfumes, Dior Backstage Blush, Vivienne Westwood necklaces, etc. The concept of “pretty clutter” is at the core of this style. It is evident not only in the layering of the clothing pieces but also in the setting: messily stacked books, wads of jewelry, scattered makeup products, mounds of plush items like pillows and stuffed animals, etc. This overabundance is fanatical and invites those who witness it to be equally addicted to subjecting themselves to consumerism. This is intrinsically anti-feminist, as capitalism is heavily geared toward fem-presenting people, playing off of “the pink tax” and fem-centered suffering like patriarchically inflicted insecurities that drive consumers toward diet culture, makeup, and even certain clothing.
Hyper-Feminine Clothing As a Tool in the War Against the Patriarchy
As previously noted, the “coquette” community largely engages in an exaggerated presentation of femininity as an attempt to reclaim femininity and redefine what it means to “dress girly”. In past decades, clear displays of bows and lace indicated youth, naivete, and a submission to preconceived notions of what it means to be a “girl”. Therefore, this style was linked to the concept of weakness.
The soft exterior is now being utilized as a weapon of irony against the patriarchy to contrast against the chaotic interior of the wearer. In a sense, this overtly delicate way of dressing installs a sense of fear in the male gaze. It is a mockery of their ideal, and yet a caricature of the hysterical woman they fear.
While many critics argue the style has sexual undertones, especially given its fascination with the story of Lolita, this too can be viewed as a reclamation of the fetishization often imposed on them. This criticism is also less centered on the nymphet origins of the “coquette” style and more so focused on the imagery and emotional connotations of the modern trend.
Notably, there are many subsections of “coquette”, allowing for a greater variety of self-expression. For instance, some subgenres include: “vintage Americana”, “dollette”, “balletcore”, etc. While “vintage Americana” tends to express themes of unhinged retro rage, “balletcore” centers stories of subtle and controlled internal power. Both of these, for example, focus on the juxtaposition between soft and sharp traits through the display of femininity, but do so in unique ways that allow for a more niche storyline to unveil itself in the clothing.
Overall, despite its flaws, the “sad girl” style ultimately provides femme people an outlet for artistic expression of their experiences with gender and sexuality, the same as poetry or music would, and it could not be more representative of the fourth wave of feminism we are currently moving through.
Photo by Julian Hamilton