It's 2024, and it seems we are all ready for a brat summer. But you might be wondering..
.what even is brat summer? To answer a few questions up front: The location? A grungy, sticky club, of course. The color palette? A sickening slime green.
That smell in the air? Probably Marlboro lights, chips, and sweat. Thanks to Charli XCX's Brat album, which was released on June 7, all things pink and Barbiecore are so 2023. This is brat summer, and it is feral and green.
The sleek clean girl is out, the messy internet It-girlie is in. She is everywhere. She is so Julia ( Fox , duh).
Listen, even Kamala Harris (yes, Vice President Harris, the potential Democratic nominee for president) is living that life Von Dutch. (Her official campaign page on Twitter made her banner brat-coded, guys.) Here's everything you need to know.
What is brat summer? What is brat summer—and, perhaps more importantly, why is brat summer? Brat summer is an aesthetic and a way of life inspired by the Charli XCX album—you know, the one with the iconic lime green cover that is now absolutely everywhere? On one level, the album is the sonic equivalent of a grimy, sweaty dance floor. It is all deep beats and manic energy. But, as many critics have noted, all of this feral party girl energy is laced with a vaguely unsettling dose of millennial anxiety.
In Club Classics , Charli sings, “I wanna be flooded by the lights” and states that she's “never gonna stop to the morning light.” But, of course, none of us can keep on numbing ourselves with the party forever (sorry). When the club shuts its doors, she finds herself caught in more melancholic self-reflection.
She admits she's “a mess and plays the role.” She says she's “thinking about it all the time”—and yes, she's talking about what so many of us are thinking about all the time, which is her baby timeline . Later, she states, “Sometimes, I just wanna rewind” in a song that evokes quintessential millennial nostalgia.
Basically, she's having an existential crisis while trying to numb it all with a feral party, and it's oh so millennial. Embrace brat summer. Go on, we dare you.
Brat may be laced with a touch of existential dread, but hey, aren't we all? Brat summer just makes sense. And here's how you can embrace it as the aesthetic and lifestyle it is. Ultimately, it needs to be a little chaotic.
As Charli herself said, “It can go that way, like, quite luxury, but it can also be so, like, trashy. Just, like, a pack of cigs, and, like, a Bic lighter, and, like, a strappy white top. With no bra.
That's, like, kind of all you need.” Sunglasses; edgy, square-rimmed, and always on. Messy hair.
No hairbrush necessary. A smudged smokey 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. This article first appeared on Glamour UK.
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