We find ourselves in delirious Mid-August: a closing chapter of summer where the impact of multiple festivals, the odd holiday, and a lack of grown-up supervision at work combine to cause feelings of acute disorientation. TikTok has offered Gen-Z an antidote: being “very demure, very mindful, very cutesy.” You might have seen Jennifer Lopez instructing you how to consume a fizzy drink “demurely”, or the White House’s official Instagram post a photograph of Joe Biden with the caption: “Cancelling the student debt of nearly 5 million Americans through various actions.
Very mindful. Very demure,” and thought – what now? Which would be fair. Consider it the comedown of the Charli XCX-pioneered 365 party Brat summer .
Being demure is hiding behind sunglasses, being introverted and being proper. It is the Princess of Wales wearing Emilia Wickstead, not Julia Fox wearing sellotape. The fad began with a TikTok guide-to office make-up by trans creator Jools Lebron (self-styled “miss demure”) at the start of the month.
"See how I do my make-up for work?,” she mews, satirically. “Very demure, very mindful." It has now clocked 42.
6M, and spun into “DemureTok”. Search now, and find countless guides: from how to walk through airports and thank hotel staff demurely, to applying deodorant and eating pizza mindfully. If you were to analyse it further, you could see it as a reclamation of the feminine — enjoying “ladylike”, polite, classy things in a mindful, demure way by choice and not by diktat.
But overanalysis is not very cutesy. Instead, consider dressing the part: toned down, not pick me. “It’s quiet luxury for real people” says Harriet Elton, a stylist behind many Tatler and Harper’s Bazaar covers.
“So poplin dress, with knitted jumper, woven sandals and croissant crumbs. It’s coy, not sexy, and leaves you wanting more. No bum cheeks or low cowl neck booby tops.
Big sunnies to hide the hangover.” Hallmarks of the look can be found in the grown-up sections of Me+Em and Massimo Dutti, with long, monochrome dresses and ankle length suede skirts. Giorgio Armani’s Queen Elizabeth II-esque bag, La Prima, is the brands hottest product (searches are up 71% per cent week-on-week per shopping app Lyst) and bang on.
Celeste is a pin-up, so too are fans of Chloé, the French brand which, under the new leadership of designer Chemena Kamali , is dressing Sienna Miller and Suki Waterhouse in floaty, cover-up boho dresses. As for boys (no, not excluded) menswear stylist Clementine Brown suggests “thinking of the perfect boyfriend you could bring home to your parents and what he might be wearing. Put together but not polished, neat but still a bit undone.
” As for the shopping list: “a soft loose cardigan, vintage t-shirt (ironed, no holes) and a sturdy but subtle shoe — no hype trainers in sight.” All that’s left is to seek out the demure in London. That’s no problem at all.
Mixed Media Maxi Dress, £136, meandem.com Suede leather midi skirt, £299, massimodutti.com Fable x Natural History Museum, necklace, £28, fableengland.
com The Boyfriend Shirt, £95, withnothingunderneath.com The Margot, £425, gdmonaco.com La Prima bag, £1,300, armani.
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