Baked bean girls, succubus chic and all of 2023’s best and worst microtrends
Think of practically anything, and it’s likely that there’s a microtrend named after it. In 2023, it was all about popping on the suffix of “core” and creating a neat way of describing how a particular outfit, makeup style or general state of being taps into a particular aesthetic. Blokecore, corpcore and the more vague tomato girl were just some of the microtrends that emerged this year, making their way around social media, onto the bodies of celebs, and into article after article debating whether they’re a good or bad cultural phenomenon. For some, they were harmless fun, and for others they were the antithesis of true self expression. One thing’s for sure, and that’s that there were a lot of them. We’ve ranked them from worst to best.
15) Baked bean girls
We’re not even going to get into this one too much. From what we can decipher from this TikTok, it’s a term used to describe the girlies who like the same stuff a lot of girls like – flouncy, Matilda Djerf-esque hair and minimal, grey-hued outfits – with the addition of the tomatoey food that Heinz is famous for. It’s likely a joke, but given just how many microtrends on this list are quite the opposite (a.k.a. meant to be taken seriously) it’s getting a place on this list.
14) Hard-boiled egg girls
… Ditto. Like its cousin baked bean girls, hard-boiled egg girls are yet another testament to how Gen Z can make an aesthetic out of absolutely anything. Making the rounds because of this TikTok, hard-boiled eggs girls is, again, someone practising the clean girl aesthetic, with the added Brucie Bonus of eggs. Who’s a proponent of this microtrend? We’re not sure anyone would want to put their name to something associated with the smelly snack. If we had to pick one, it might be Emily Mariko, who’s suitably clean, and who we’ve seen eating a boiled egg or two.
13) Bella Swan core
Perhaps the most self-explanatory of 2023’s microtrends, Bella Swan core takes its name from the protagonist of the Twilight series. Presumably getting its inspo from the clothes donned by Kristen Stewart’s rendition of the slightly pathetic, needy girlfriend of Edward Cullen, it’s a look personified by 00s flared jeans, Abercrombie-esque tops and, if you’re lucky, a more on the nose bag like this one by the brand Praying. To be honest, Bella Swan core is just a testament to the fact that anything can become a “core”, no matter how disgusting it was when it first came out.
12) Strawberry girls
Last year, Hailey Bieber gave us “glazed donut nails” and “glazed donut skin”. This year, the magnate of microtrends gave us strawberry girl summer, a look connoted by rosy cheeks, exaggerated freckles, and exuding the vibe of someone who’s lived the charmed existence Miss Bieber has. While strawberry girl summer was, ultimately, a marketing move in order to advertise the latest addition to the Rhode skincare line, strawberry girl summer transformed into something else entirely after being unleashed on the internet. According to Glamour, “there’s a wholesome, organic romance to the trend, which conjures up picnics al fresco, walking barefoot through the garden with a punnet of strawbs and reading a book in the sunshine”.
11) Tomato girls
Like the strawberry girl, tomato girl connotes an abstract vibe. A lifestyle. To put it simply, the microtrend is essentially 2023’s answer to the “La Dolce Vita” look. Blending the kind of outfits worn by Monica Bellucci back in the 90s (think Dolce and Gabbana Spring 1997) and the whole vibe of the second season of HBO’s The White Lotus, its vintage-inspired aesthetics are the antithesis of quiet luxury, which feel a little soulless in comparison. One of the main fixtures of tomato girl summer? Basket bags: searches for them on Depop increased by 28% in July.
10) Rat girls
Not everyone is capable of emulating the hyper-clean aesthetics of the tomato girl and the strawberry girl. For these people, there’s rat girl summer, essentially a remedy to the physical labour involved in evoking an “effortless” aesthetic that’s actually not effortless in the slightest. The creator of rat girl summer is writer Lola Kolade, who said in the TikTok that sparked the whole thing that it’s all about “embracing rodent energy”: getting sweaty, dirty, and seeing the beauty in the moments that are less Instagrammable. Still confused? It’s basically a more subdued version of going goblin mode, which made the rounds in 2022.
9) Grungecore
Would Kurt Kobain have wanted his face plastered on a Supreme knit that’s now selling on StockX for nearly $300? We’re not sure. One thing’s for certain, and it’s that the fans of grungecore who purchased them certainly didn’t care. Grungecore is essentially 2023’s rendition of grunge: dominating the 90s, it was popularised by bands like Nirvana and donned by darlings of the decade like Drew Barrymore. What’s different about it this time round? Well, like most of the microtrends on this list, grungecore is less organic than its roots: dirty docs and old, hole-ridden jumpers are swapped out for highly curated outfits with pieces from designers like Undercover.
8) Cowboycore
Though The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Kyle Richards has made cowboy core her aesthetic since, well, the dawn of time, this year it underwent a palpable resurgence. Cowboy hats were an integral part of the outfits donned by both fans and the artists themselves at Beyonce and Harry Styles’ tours, and there was an overwhelming denim presence in Glenn Marten’s FW23 collection for Diesel. Their denim cowboy boots remain sold out to this day.
7) Barbiecore
We can’t talk about 2023’s microtrends without mentioning Barbiecore, which was born out of Greta Gerwig’s wildly successful film Barbie, and is all about donning as much pink as you possibly can. Who can blame proponents of Barbiecore: when you see someone as beautiful as Margot Robbie in a pink fit, the natural response is to want to emulate it, no matter how mental it might make you look. Cinemagoers did just that in their droves when they attended screenings of Barbie, taking style cues from collections built around fuschia that predate the film entirely: think Valentino’s all-pink AW22 show by Pierpaolo Piccioli as well as all of the pops of pink in the Dior show that debuted early this year.
6) Blokecore
Does blokecore – a trend based around popping on vintage football tees alongside other fixtures of typical blokes – appropriate the largely working class culture it borrows from? That would need a whole article of its own, and it didn’t stop blokecore being wildly popular this year. In June, searches for football shirts on Depop experienced a 344% spike, and around that time you couldn’t really scroll through Instagram without seeing someone in a pair of jorts. Though blokecore popped up prior to this year – Balenciaga’s second collaboration with Adidas last November comes to mind – but it was only in 2023 that blokecore truly became king. Footballers like Jack Grealish became is rumoured to become a face of Gucci, and bloke-ification found its way beyond fashion, with young people (likely from Surrey and/or Kent) popping into iconic London “caffs” to take piccies for the gram.
5) Mermaidcore
What do you get when you mix pop culture moments like the recent reboot of The Little Mermaid and Dua Lipa’s turn as “mermaid Barbie” with classic silhouettes of resort wear? Mermaid core. Think slippery, wet-look fabrics (DI PETSA, you’re up), crochet, shiny embellishments, Dua Lipa’s collection with Versace and early 00s collections at Blumarine. Mermaid core has manifested in more subversive ways too. For Halloween, British designer YazXL hosted a party at The Standard in Ibiza that was based around popping on your most peculiar fishy fits. The result? Oversized crab claws and apocalyptic renditions of sea creatures that gave the term mermaid core a whole new meaning.
4) Blokette
For the girlies that are too scared of getting drowned by the masculine silhouettes of blokecore, there’s blokette. It’s (you guessed it) a mix of blokecore and coquette, the microtrend based around uber-girly flourishes that takes its name from the French for a “flirtatious woman”. Coined by podcast Nymphet Alumni, blokette connotes a fit that blends the hyper-feminine with the oversized, baggy shapes at the other end of the spectrum: think an Adidas track top paired with a floaty skirt and ballet pumps. To be honest, you don’t have to look further than a campaign shot from British designer Wales Bonner to see what blokette is all about.
3) Balletcore
It’s an aesthetic synonymous with Miu Miu satin ballet flats, leg warmers and knitted off the shoulder tops. The term “balletcore” actually first popped up in 2022, and ballet aesthetics have found their way into fashion way before that, appearing in archive collections by designers like Jean Paul Gaultier. It was only in 2023, however, that balletcore became an instantly recognisable selling point, transforming into subcategories on fast fashion websites and weaselling its way into beauty campaigns, a-la Hailey Bieber’s Rhode. The patron saints of balletcore will probably change depending on how much you want them to look like they could actually attend a ballet class, but we’d point to Bella Hadid, who likely played a large role in Sandy Liang’s ballet flats constantly being sold out.
2) Succubus chic
Scroll through Instagram for long enough and you’ll realise that there are four girls who look, more or less, exactly the same: Sydney Carlson, Amata Alp, Gabriette, and Lisa Rinna spawn Amelia Gray are the faces of what’s being called succubus chic. Basically a 90s-ified Morticia Adams, it’s an aesthetic that’s all about skinny brows, a lobotomised, verging-on-dead stare, and ghoulish dark makeup that looks like something Angelina Jolie would have sported during a red carpet appearance with Billy Bob Thornton. Given its emphasis on sunken, exaggerated cheekbones, some people have weighed in and asked if succubus chic “glamorises illness”, which would be a valid concern if it weren’t for the fact that not one but two of the big succubus chic girlies offer up slightly witchy cooking videos alongside their teeny brows. What a spooky coincidence?
1) Corpcore
No, not gorpcore. Corpcore. Corpcore is essentially the reason why during the latter stages of this year you started to see fashion girlies donning outfits that made them look a bit like Andy from The Devil Wears Prada. Essentially corporate wear made fashionable, it’s an aesthetic personified by the skirt suits found on 90s Prada runways as well as brands like Paloma Wool and all is a gentle spring. What put the term on the map was BOSS’ Fall/Winter 2023 collection, which they said outright was inspired by corpcore. Before that? Bella Hadid had already made it an integral part of her wardrobe rotation, donning matching sets by Sandy Liang and Coperni.
