Ballet flats are stepping back out of the shadows
Within this past year, you may or may not have heard the terms “girl dinner,” “girl math,” or “girlhood” being used online by young women to describe the chaotic and mundane aspects of their lives, from crappy meals to celebrations of female friendships. The use of the term girl has created an online discourse of girl-identifying individuals who relate to one another and create comedic rhetorics around mental health and the everyday ups and downs and pragmatic truths of being a woman. They romantisise their lives in a way that recognises the prosaic and generic parts of it as something fantastical. “I’m just a girl!” and “In a Sofia Coppola kind of way” are phrases used to justify, beautify, and romanticise the imperfect and human behaviour of women. Deny the second-wave feminist assumption that to be an empowered woman means to align oneself with traditionally masculine traits or ambitions or the socially instilled expectation of compliance.
The beautification and aestheticisation of girlhood online come in many pretty pink packages. Trends like “coquette” and “ballet-core” have been sensationalized on the internet and used over 700 million times on apps like TikTok in promotion of particular fashion aesthetics and inspiring many, from Midwest girls to New York City fashion influencers.
Coquette, though a term coined in the 1600s, is nowadays considered a lifestyle and fashion aesthetic that has dominated the online fashion scene since 2021. The term “coquette” derives from the French word coq, but is culturally understood as a woman who flirts with or desires the sexualising attention of men. The “coquette” aesthetic derives from the soft pastel grunge, nymphet, and Lolita aesthetics that trended within the early 2010s, the genesis of micro-group aesthetics that transpired on Tumblr (thank you, Lana Del Rey). The style also pulls inspiration from the kinder-whore aesthetic of the 1990s grunge scene and opposingly from the royal styles of ballerinas and Marie Antoinette—in the eyes of Sofia Coppola, that is. This blend of styles from multiple eras creates a modern-day look encompassed by 50s American vintage, Mary Janes, bows, lace, gingham, and, of course, anything in the shape of a heart.
As for the twin flame of the coquette aesthetic, ballet-core is another micro-trend with traditionally girly motifs that has garnered the attention of members of the girlhood over the past year. Ballet-core, or ballet-inspired fashion, has a much deeper history that extends over a century past the 2014 Tumblr renaissance and has played a valuable role in the evolution of couture in fashion. However, it is also rooted in the sexual exploitation of women in ballet since the 19th century. Entering the ballet as children, girls of 19th century Paris were subject to the perversion of upper-class men, oppressive leadership within their studios, and competitive malnourishment—all packaged pretty in a tutu. Nowadays, the use of ballet motifs such as pink, black, and white colour palettes, bows and tutus, leg warmers and ballerina flats are glamourised on apps like TikTok. These create a niche aesthetic that celebrates the elegance and off-the-clock styles of a ballerina despite the controversial history and continued toxic culture that exists in the world of ballet.
Returning to the sensationalisation of girlhood, one may ask if these fashion trends use bows and mini skirts to salaciously infantilise one’s appearance and lifestyle. The discourse around the Lolita and nymphet aesthetics criticises the styles for being insensitive, infantilising, and perverted, given their connections to erotically inappropriate stories that romanticise the image of underage girls. Is it possible to explore hyper-femininity without being inherently sexual? While a valid concern to question the age-appropriateness of certain styles, what differentiates these “girlhood” aesthetics from controversial aesthetics like that of Lolita is its reinterpretation of the hyper-feminine image. From an image that has received a negative connotation of being hyper-sexual or inappropriate, to one that recognises feminine or girly symbols as non-comparative to those of a child’s, exploring a woman’s choice to dress how she wants without the apprehension for creeps. Many adherents to the coquette style find solace in their active clarification of and revisionist take on the matter, rejecting the assumed objectification and infantilisation of their ribbons and celebrating their choice to adorn themselves in girliness, despite half of the world telling them it makes them a bad feminist and the other half oppressing them for it.
The current subscription to girlhood does not exclude the grown woman, the successful woman, the mentally ill woman, or the stay-at-home mom. It relies upon itself to make everything look pretty and turns a mundane day or a failed attempt at productivity into an Ottessa Moshfegh novel. In September 2023, writer, speaker, and sex educator Rukiat Ashawe expressed to Refinery29, “Femininity and girliness are synonymous with our oppression. A part of our emancipation has been to reject them.” Girlhood, lately, is a representation of being a girl because it’s fun and rejects the patriarchal framework that denies girlhood of innate competency or value or stripping away one’s title as a feminist simply because they adhere to traditionally girly styles. Perhaps she does not care to girlboss her way up to a CEO position to prove that she is just as powerful as the man. Screw the man. Girlhood rejects the second-wave feminist ideology that a girl’s value transpires in her ability to sit in at the boy’s club. The girl’s club is a much prettier place to be. It is an expression of girliness that does not care to follow the footsteps of the man in order to be seen as its equal. Girlhood has nothing to prove to you, as it already sees itself as an equal, using historically patronised symbols of what it means to be girly and repackaging them as an act of modern feminism.
