Is The Clean Girl Aesthetic Dead?

The iconic French Riviera wedding, the slicked-back bun, the effortless look, and classy reception dress further cemented her already solid place as the “clean girl” muse. Every bride I styled that year wanted to channel Sofia in their wedding looks. Even clients who weren’t getting married wanted to understand how to apply her effortless elegance to their own style. To me, Sofia was (and is) the cover model of the clean girl aesthetic trend. It’s the barely there nails, the sleek tailoring of her new brand SRG Atelier, the perfectly undone, but also sometimes done hair. Her wedding came at the height of the clean girl craze, and don’t we all want to capture that essence?

That was true then, but since Sofia, there hasn’t been a muse headlining a trend of the same caliber for my clients. The clean girl aesthetic feels like the last mass trend that swept the nation as a whole, and while the aesthetic itself is certainly not dead, the concept of blindly following mass trends is dying.

Recent cultural moments that should have had the same impact didn’t. When “Love Story” was released, I assumed we’d see another Sofia-level effect. I expected clients to flood my inbox wanting to recreate Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s ’90s minimalism. Instead, the opposite happened.

We know correlation does not equal causation, but I started to see more and more clients wanting to channel bold, maximalist aesthetics into their everyday personal style. The complete opposite of CBK’s tailored, minimal looks. What’s interesting is that not all of my clients are moving toward the same alternative aesthetic, though. Some are embracing maximalism. Others are leaning into vintage. Others need a functional capsule wardrobe.

The common thread right now isn’t wanting to tap into a trend. Rather, it’s a desire for a style that feels personally meaningful. More so than the swing toward maximalist style has been a recent push from my clients to help them tap into their authentic personal style instead of following the crowd.

For some girls, Sofia Richie Grange is still their style muse (she’ll forever be one of mine), but for others, regardless of who the latest style icon is, they’re pushing away or at least adjacent, venturing rather into an exploration of a style that feels authentic to them. I think there are a few reasons why we’re seeing this shift in how trends are adapted and perceived.

The rise in secondhand and vintage finds

Qualitatively, I can tell you that I’m seeing more and more clients requesting that I source pieces on secondhand sites like The RealReal, Poshmark, and Fashionphile. I think the relentless rise and subsequent fall of mass trends is exhausting, and now girls are looking to build a curated closet, not one that looks exactly like their best friend’s. They’re tired of showing up to events in the same brands as everyone else. The monotony of trendmaxxing has fatigued us all, and the secondhand market is the perfect creative antidote. It’s, of course, also more affordable than buying brand-new items.

Quantitatively, economic pressure is fueling an increase in the desire for secondhand clothing, which I think in turn is driving more personalized styles. You can source a vintage Gucci bag that’s half the retail price of a current style and start to build something that feels more you. Twenty-seven percent of consumers say they will increase their secondhand purchasing to offset price increases, and 59% of consumers say they shopped secondhand in 2025. It’s leading to an increase in the number of differentiated closets and unique styles.

Social media algorithms

Social media algorithms have influenced this shift as well. As the algorithms have transitioned from presenting follower-based content to being content graphs themselves, consumers are more likely to see content that appeals to them based on previous engagement patterns, ensuring that we see what we’ll spend the most time looking at. So maybe trends don’t have the chokehold on us they once did because online content has become so fragmented.

Additionally, in the era when it seems everyone wants to be an influencer, and really, small business owners and others have to at least be savvy content creators, we’re told that you must have a niche; you must provide something different and unique for your audience. You cannot have the same point of view as everyone else. What is unique about your content that people will come back to? This translates to style as well.

Individuality over mass trends

In the past, I think there has been a bigger emphasis on fitting in, getting the next “it” bag as a symbol of status, or being included in the “in” crowd, being in the know, and using that truth to showcase value. We’re now living in a hyperindividualized society where the term “niche” seems to be par for the course. I constantly hear from my clients, “I don’t want to look like anyone else.” And you might be asking, well, how in the world do you style someone who doesn't want to look like anyone else when there’s so much content flying at us each day and everything feels like it’s been done before? We combat this by getting very granular with our clients in our first sessions.

Oftentimes we’ll take a muse and sculpt those qualities until it feels uniquely them, adding in tweaks until they say “Yes, that’s me.” We create phrases for our clients at first to help them ground in the style they want to achieve. I’ve had “Carolyn Bessette if she wore pastels meets Sofia Richie Grange”; I’ve had a “slightly edgier Paige Lorenze.” Eventually, as we coach and guide and tweak, Carolyn Bessette if she wore pastels becomes my client and her very essence. As she learns to trust herself, she can gather inspiration from muses and mass trends without sacrificing her own sense of individuality.

In my opinion, we shouldn’t be asking the question in the first place: is the clean girl aesthetic dead? It’s less about monitoring if the current it-girl trend is dead and more about monitoring what feels life-giving to your own personal style. Trends are moving faster and faster, and it’s impossible to keep up. So ultimately, I encourage my clients to do some soul-searching on how they want to feel in their looks. Celebrity stylist Erin Walsh lives and breathes this concept and recently released a book, “The Art of Intentional Dressing,” which I’m about halfway through and highly recommend reading. When I can guide my clients inward and frame fashion as an act of self-care and creative self-expression, the allure of mass trends slowly fades away, and they’re left with only choosing pieces in the morning that bring them vitality.

The future of fashion isn’t another clean girl. It’s the confidence to borrow inspiration without becoming a copy of it.