I’m here to declare - mess is cool again.
(Hold for applause)
After what felt like a century (okay, maybe 5 years) of “clean girl makeup”, aesthetic flat lays of products, and perfectly coordinated looks, it seems as if the fashion world is leaning into the chaos of the world around us.
The flatlays have given way to “cluster” pics.
Eclectic collections of items nestled into chaotic, but still curated piles.
My lil' clusters
Amy Winehouse and Courtney Love are filling the girls’ Pinterest boards.
The eyeliner is getting messier when just yesterday it was being eschewed altogether.
I mean, it even seems like people are smoking again? (Not me. I mean, I want to… But I won’t. But I want to.)
Amy Winehouse in her trailer at Coachella - 2007
The terminology “clean girl” has always bristled me. It leans too much into this idea of purity and neatness intertwined.
Clean girl says that to be feminine is to be “perfect”.
And well, perfect has never been my thing.
When you scratch at the surface of this, the momentum shift towards mess is so clear: Who hasn’t felt like the last year, or two, or three, has been some kind of long, sloppy hangover?
Who wants to look perfect when the world everything but.
Now, you might be reading this and saying: “Alice, this sounds like depression.”
But au contraire!
I can’t help but think that the conscious effort to have our outsides, our social media, and our makeup match the chaos we feel inside to be an empowering, dare I say radical, choice.
Farewell inspo from '90s Kate Moss. We've entered the aughts Kate era - with a healthy dose of Sienna Miller ofc.
Add onto that, thanks to AI, anything can look perfect. Perfection has been democratized. And as we know in fashion, once everyone can have it, it ceases to be cool.
So, now a sense of disorder, of humanism, of personality, is the ultimate luxury.
Brands are opting for hand-drawn elements on their accounts. Posts of interiors are full of trinkets and treasures. Outfits are becoming more layered, less manicured.
This is how millennials came up, after all.
The 2000s saw bedroom walls filled with posters, backpacks filled with handwritten notes between friends, folded into more and more complicated shapes.
Yet somewhere along the way, Millennials became known for beige.
And our rooms went from this:
To this.
Truly no offense if your apartment looks like this. You probably are great at pilates and pay your bills on time and I love that for you.
All trinkets tossed in a fit of 2016 Marie Kondo-induced mania.
All sense of personality, gone.
All in the guise of growing up.
And although I never aligned with the perfection of the "clean girls", I myself have never been a full chaos queen. (It’s still early in the trend, so I gotta stake a claim to the branding and verbiage here obvi.)
But I have been finding comfort in a return to personal style and eclectic vibes.
Here are the places I’m leaning into the mess…
Eyeliner.
She’s back. And I want to hear nothing about "millennial eyeliner” blah blah blah. We’re going smudgy and smoky. A kohl pencil and your finger are your best assets.
Ideally applied heavily while sitting on the floor in front of the mirror of your best friend’s room.
Bags.
I’m feeling something slouchy and abundant for summer. The tiny ladylike bags are still in the ether. And yes, the VTG Celine luggage totes and Balenciaga city bags are flying off TRR.
But don't sleep on something more tailored, like the Chloe Paddingtons or the OG Proenza Schouler PS1 bags.
Hair.
The slickbacks are holding you back. Friend of HI, Natalie Shine has already debuted the “Bitchy Little Side Bang” for summer - which I love.
But you can take it one step further - one step messier - and pull inspo from Prada Spring 2010 and opt for a deep side part ponytail with soft texture. (See also, Miu Miu Spring 2006, Prada Fall 2017 and the very controversial hair from Prada Fall 2026.)
Accessories.
Lauren Hutton by Milton Greene - 1966
This is where I’m really feeling at home.
Layers and layers. Necklaces, bracelets, rings. More is more.
Proving that mess can be glam, too.
Doechii proving you can serve this style with polish.
But the the 2026 Messy Girl still has her clean-girl roots. (I don't think any of us need to go back to the skincare of the early '00s) And a healthy dose of 1920s glamour and hedonism thrown in.
After all this "mess" is less about one certain aesthetic and more about self expression.
So go forth this summer and live a little chaotically. A little messy. A little glam.
In a lot of style.
