In spring 2022, a fashion micro-trend called the “coastal grandmother” took off as one of the most engaging and widely adopted trends of the spring and summer. Marked by blue striped button-downs, straight-leg jeans, gold jewelry, iced tea and collared sweaters, the trend dominated the fashion and lifestyle choices of Gen Z for a brief period.
TikTok micro-aesthetics like the coastal grandmother, clean girl and mob wife have not only captivated Gen Z but become almost as ubiquitous as the app itself. The popularity of these hyper-specific trends is not only indicative of the generation's ability to shape culture but also their embrace of collectivism. With a whole generation so easily shifting their identities to embrace quickly changing fads, one wonders what happened to individuality? And why does Gen Z feel the need to conform?
TikTok mania
One of the biggest trends to take over TikTok is the clean girl aesthetic—a trend that dominated social media all of 2023. The clean girl aesthetic not only focused on fashion but lifestyle too, embracing simplicity and cleanliness from head to toe. Clear lip gloss, dewy skin, clean eating advice, workout sets and tutorials on slicked-back buns flooded Gen Z feeds.
It seemed Gen Z was on board for this to be the trend of our generation—until last month, when creator Kayla Trivieri posted a video claiming that “Clean girl is out, mob wife is in.” It got 1.7M views and spurred the creation of 16.8K videos with #mobwife.