Sick of organising your pantry and journalling every night? Welcome to the wild and wonderful world of ‘Brat Summer’ where hedonism and mess are welcome
I’m normally the first one to jump on and absolutely rip to shreds a stupid TikTok trend. Just like Gen Z’s mock us millennials for always needing to know what Harry Potter house we belong to (Gryffindor) and our use of words like ‘adulting’ or ‘doggo’ (they might have a point on that one), we have no idea why things need to be ‘eras’ or ‘girls’ or ‘seasons’ and don’t get me started about their candle lamps.
But I’ll be damned, the kids might be onto something with Brat Summer.
What is Brat Summer, and why should we care?
Brat Summer is a vibe coined from Charli XCX’s newest album Brat that’s absolutely smashed charts around the world (and I have to admit, it’s a bloody vibe). Described by USA Today as “an embrace of a hot-mess pop star aesthetic, prioritising [sic] club culture at its core but still offering introspective lyrics on ageing [sic], womanhood, grief and anxiety,” Brat Summer is based on the aesthetic, relatable and psychological qualities of the album – essentially, the carefree, grungy and hedonistic vibes of the 80s and 90s mingled with 2024 millennial and Gen Z anxiety.
It’s a HUGE move away from the 2023 ‘clean girl’ aspiration – remember the slicked-back buns, Stanley Cups, tailored clothing and almost every area of your life meticulously organised, preferably with a dot journal and 30 minutes of meditation and gratitude a day? It was a rich white woman’s game and for the vast majority of us clean girl was not only unobtainable, but it also clashed wildly with the reality of the world we’re living in right now.
Brats are the antidote to the clean girl. Clean girls drink matcha; brats will take a swig of vodka. Clean girls love a simple and refined makeup look; brats’ eyeliner is perpetually smudged. Clean girls are in bed by 9pm trying to figure out how they can be a ‘better person’ the next day; brats are dancing away the day’s problems and pretending, just for a god damned minute, they don’t exist.
Says Charli herself, “It’s very honest, it’s very blunt, it’s a little bit volatile … It’s brat, you’re brat, that’s brat.”
Brat Summer is almost an evolution of ‘hot girl summer’, the movement that aimed to inspire every girl, woman, womxn, human, to be the best and most happy version of themselves, body confident and body positive with healthy boundaries but with an undercurrent of bright, bold and confident aesthetic.
This version, the brat version, is underlined by ‘brat green’ – slime green to the rest of the world – and is messier and FAR more unapologetic, almost a rebellion against the basic bitch curation that’s dominated our feeds for so long.
Glamour helpfully pulled together a list of key items that help you look brat:
- Sunglasses; edgy, square-rimmed, and always on
- Messy hair. No hairbrush necessary
- A smudged smoky eye
- Knee-high lace-up boots
- Bad tattoos on leather tanned skin (or at least bring that energy)
- Leather, in general, is good
- Y2K lipgloss is also good
- Lime green nails and eyeshadow, because why not
- Old, corded Apple headphones (lol and to think we threw away HOW many pairs).
But more than an aesthetic, what does it mean to be ‘brat’?
Brat – the acknowledgement that the world is on fire, but you’re doing your bloody best
The zeitgeist has jumped on Brat Summer, and at its core, it’s actually a vibe that all generations can understand and relate to. Brat, they say, is self-defining – rather than having fit into a mould of what the zeitgeist has decided is cool, brat is about your own version of cool, mingled with the permission to be messy and manic and hedonistic and bra-less; a gloriously nostalgic mix of decades and influences. Charli makes the point in lead single Von Dutch, using the 2000s iconic label as a metaphor for being able to be desirable and influential no matter what you’re wearing “cult classic but I still pop”. (I know, Von Dutch being a thing again was NOT on my 2024 bingo card).
The messages and themes of the album – grief, and the guilt that comes with grief; career insecurity, mental health, the pressure of having to choose between career and success and motherhood – are kind of revelatory. Schitt’s Creek writer and author of Really Good, Actually, Monica Heisey, sums it up well, describing the message of Brat as “feminine contradiction – the way someone can be a 365 party girl and also anxious about motherhood, the way friendship with other powerful women can be both empowering and a source of anxiety, the way a full-on thirtysomething woman can still feel like a girl inside. It’s also about saying: fuck those contradictions, I’m having fun and I don’t care if I’m being a little annoying about it.”
Brat is a rejection of traditional societal expectations and norms, but also those new ones that social media, TikTok especially, as so good at shoving in front of our faces on the daily – the over curation, the overconsumption, the stuff, the image d’jour we’re trying to achieve that’s supposed to be the same for everyone – Barbiecore, clean girl – that’s always feminine and polished and deliberate. Brat is, potentially, a bit of an overcorrection, but a welcome correction nonetheless – instead of leggings hauls and Shein sets, it’s wearing the same outfit every day because you can.
At its core, ‘brat’ and ‘brat summer’ is the acknowledgement that things have gone to shit and you’re doing your best – you’re recycling, you’re kind, you’re green, you’re politically engaged, you’re charitable, you’re empathetic. But because you’re all these things you’re also fucking tired, so a vodka on the rocks and a spirited dance around the living room in your undies with zero shits given is not only acceptable, it’s tonic.
Brat Summer has even entered the US Presidential Election chat, with Chari declaring that likely Democratic presidential candidate and current Vice President Kamala Harris “IS brat” – which, compared to the absolute trash pile that is the current state of America has resonated massively with the young left.
And let’s be honest, it’s not like things have been great back here in Aotearoa as we battle the never-ending cost of living crisis, some *interesting* political decisions and a general malaise that doesn’t seem to want to let up.
Brat is kind of like Gen Z’s Serenity Prayer, if we’re allowed to mix prayers with hedonism and fun and a ‘fuck it’ mentality – “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”
I think I’ll take my prayer with a side of booze, smudged eyeliner and an absolute banger of a pop-dance album that’s truly captured the spirit of what it means to be a woman in 2024 as I dance on top on the dumpster fire that is the current vibe of the nation. I’m most definitely welcoming my brat era.
*Young people, did I say that right?