Must Be the Season of the Basic Bitch
Literally no one asked but I'm gonna ramble about the "summer is for people who can't dress" rhetoric anyway.
You may have seen Branda Hashtag's August video declaring you can’t love summer and love fashion.
Upon watching the clip for the first time, I snickered to myself, “Hehheh yessss Brenda! Summer fashion blows.” I was probably sitting unwashed in bed, swaddled in a big fluffy robe, like the true fashion authority that I am.
As someone who feels more comfortable (and beautiful!) in long coats and boots than floaty dresses, I certainly resonated with Brenda's statement, "I'm not a complete person in summer because I'm missing all my stuff."
At the time of writing, we’re smack bang in the middle of Spring/Summer Fashion Week. We Melburnians have just entered spring after a particularly brutal winter. So while all you Northern Hemi folk bust out your barn jackets and suede, I’m synthesizing my feelings towards warm-weather dressing ahead of the Aussie summer. Buckle up, it’s a meaty piece exploring:
Geographical dress codes
The pressure of a Hot Girl Summer
Seasonal haul culture
The intersection of fall fashion and being a Basic Bitch
The Melbourne Wardrobe
While I've previously said and stand by that seasonal color analysis is bullshit, I know my tastes are generally geared more toward autumn and winter aesthetics. Dark colors, leather, texture, wide-leg trousers, boots, black cherry lipstick. All that good stuff that pairs well with a glass of red or a dirty martini in a moodily lit bar.
And though I am looking forward to the dopamine hit summer offers via Vitamin D and extended daylight, plus not constantly slipping in my Tabis on rain-slicked tram tracks, the heat does drive a wedge between me and all my favorite things to wear.
This is probably a product of my environment given the significant factors that location and climate plays in shaping our lifestyles and wardrobes. As I mentioned, I'm based in Melbourne, and the two other cities I've lived in (London and Kraków) aren't exactly famed summer hotspots.
Melbourne weather is famously depicted as four seasons in one day, shattering the illusion that Australia is all sunny beaches full of Margot Robbie clones. I recently spoke to someone in Sydney who described Melbourne's culture as "kids wearing dark colors and baggy pants while rolling their own cigarettes and queuing for overpriced sandwiches." To which I (probably) responded, "Nah, yeah. Fair."
If I wanted to reach for some truly low-hanging fruit, I'd say if Australian cities were TikTok trends, Melbourne would be Brat while Sydney is Very Demure, Very Mindful. But I won't; I'm a better writer than that. (Note to Joel to edit this out.)
Melbourne has long been heralded as Australia's fashion capital, set against a backdrop of unharmonious architecture and a vibrant music, food, wine and arts scene that has admittedly slowed post-pandemic (RIP festivals). Yet the praise for Melbourne's chicness is reserved for the cooler months and its easy to see why.
In my opinion, it's not a good "summer city." Not that Melbourne doesn't get warm - last summer, temps reached 40.5 °C (that's 104.9°F for those of you playing in the US). It's because of what I call the City-To-Decent-Beach Ratio. Melbourne's ratio is all out of whack, whereas in Sydney, you don't have to go too far from the city to get to a nice beach (and I, begrudgingly, award one point to Sydney in the turf war.) Melburnian identities and dress codes aren’t tied to the coast.
A few years ago my friend moved from London to Melbourne and told me she was so excited to have beaches on her doorstep. I told her it was the wrong city for that. Perhaps I'm a snob, but I've hung around St Kilda Beach enough for one lifetime to know its convenience is not worth the experience. For a nice beach in Melbourne, I'd recommend you get in a car and drive. Far, far away from the city.
Melbourne heat is dry heat. It can get humid, sticky, and uncomfortable. My British co-workers tell me not to complain, and I'm not; I can survive in most climates. It's dressing that makes it challenging and tbh a bit boring. Warmth is the top priority for winter dressing, though I'm willing to risk being a bit chilly for a good fit (nothing some whisky can't fix).
Colder temps also offer freedom in playing with clothes and experimenting without melting into a puddle. In summer, comfort trumps all. In why are we so obsessed with autumn?,
writes that in summer "style choices fly out of the window to make room for comfort. You abandon outfit ideas for the most weather-appropriate one," which I agree with as I prepare for another season of marinating in silk skirts, tank tops and Birkenstocks while sadly rotating wool coats, thick denim and chunky loafers to the back of the closet.Hot Girl Summer
Taking us out of Melbourne, my feelings for summer differ when I’m in Europe. I thrive in a European summer. I'm sure we all feel the same way on vacation, away from work stress and enjoying a more laid-back lifestyle than afforded at home.
I automatically dress softer on summer vacations. I'm perfectly comfortable going makeup-free and am not so vigilant with shaving my underarms (anyone else find armpit hair super chic?). The floaty dresses I'm so averse to wearing in Melbourne suddenly make sense with the change in geography, warm weather, and salt clinging to tanned skin and hair while munching seafood pasta.
Despite how meticulously I've packed for a summer holiday, once I'm in a new destination, less thought goes into what I wear. I'm restricted to the assortment of garments that fit inside my suitcase as I try and avoid purchasing anything new unless necessary (e.g., panic-buying De Facto flip-flops after extreme blisters from my Saint Laurent Tribute sandals).
I find there is a surprising freedom in the limitation of choice. This is what I brought; I'll make it work. I'm not mad about dressing for comfort and ease like I would be at home in summer, seeing all my favorite wintery stuff hanging idly in the closet with no place on my overheated body.
The summer vacation period may bring relaxation, but it’s not without anxiety, FOMO and often unachievable high standards. As Brenda noted, the season is for "conventionally hot people," and we've felt the pressure to be the best-looking version of ourselves when the weather heats up long before Hot Girl Summer entered our lexicon.
In 2013, the Daily Mail (gross) published an article reporting that Match.com suggested members remove photos of themselves taken in winter on their dating profiles to favor summer shots after a survey revealed that 73% of people find others more desirable during the warmer months. Unsurprisingly, women were targeted here, with 82% of those voting that the women in their photos were more attractive in summer.
We've all grown up in a world pushing male-gazey and white-centric beauty ideals to know the insidious nature of diet culture in the summer, the "get bikini body ready" bullshit. As much as I am trying to disconnect from a lifetime of this poison, I still can't help but want to be as conventionally hot as possible in the summer.
It might be my own sick brand of dysmorphia, but in winter, I have an irrepressible urge to be thinner with that gap between my legs and long boots. I like having my hair short so that it sits on top of coats and scarves neatly. In summer, I'm more prone to considering a boob job. I prefer my hair to be longer because my distorted brain has told me it helps "balance out my body" in a bikini. Again, conventionally hot.
This narrative has potentially worsened as now with summer comes oversharing. Did you really have a good summer if you didn't take a photo? I've even had my parents ask me to share more pictures of trips on my social media. I don't love being photographed, and this can be especially hard when you're traveling with snap-happy people addicted to the Gram who need to make sure everyone stuck at home knows that they're on holiday and having THE BEST TIME EVER #summervibes. I don't mind the odd dinner pic or candid, but really, I just want to unplug, swim, sleep, eat, and repeat, not be part of a photo shoot for someone’s perfectly curated grid with a cliched holiday caption.
Despite having previously shared daily stories and posts on my travels in my 20s, I've definitely noticed a trend of reaching for my iPhone less and less as I've gotten older (unless there are cats around, of course) and not spending the trip trying to achieve the perfect bikini selfie. This isn’t because I don’t do anything exciting and worth sharing on holidays or think I'm not "hot" anymore. I simply can't be bothered documenting my hotness or trying to prove to the world that I’m winning at life in a digital pissing contest. At this stage, I feel like reserving the contents of my camera roll to the privilege of the few, not as an expectation for the masses.
Exhausted of social media, I archived all my personal Instagram posts earlier this year. Out of curiosity, I audited my hibernating digital footprint and found that I have long hair in 86% of the bikini photos I shared since getting the app a decade ago. I’ve certainly taken my little bob to the beach - over the years, I've had short hair for summer vacays in Sicily, Ischia, Lake Bled, and most recently, Türkiye.
Sadly, my posts reflect that I caved to the standard that long locks are a prerequisite for attractiveness as men staunchly declare “yOu LoOk BeTtEr WiTh LoNg HaIr”. As mentioned, I tend to be more critical of my body with short hair in the summer, and therefore was less likely to share photos on the internet because I didn't believe I looked conventionally hot - that being what summer has been reduced to online. No shame in the Instagram game, but we all know we only share the photos we think we look good in. I even made a fun chart below because I love visualizing my hangups in graph form. Yes, I'm in therapy; it's going well, thanks for asking.
Haul Culture
The pressure of having and documenting a Hot Girl summer has become catnip for brands to try and sell us more shit, as if taking a much-needed vacation isn’t expensive enough (this is the part where I say “in this economy!?”). Not that fall is without the relentless “BUY NOW” energy. As
of A Common Thread writes, “from September to December, it’s a cycle of trends, new product drops, and sales, on repeat.”However, summer fashion feels more disposable and less practical. This could be due to the predictability and of fall fashion. It’s pretty safe. As mentioned in the above piece,
author, Rufina, says “I’ve been getting a real laugh out of the fall 2024 trend list: brown and suede. Isn’t that the same old story every fall? So groundbreaking.” So true, see my current jonesing for everything chocolate brown right now, almost definitely influenced by the change of seasons in the North Hemi.
Summer is the birth season of many a micro trend, see Tomato Girl, Strawberry Girl, Coastal Grandmother/Cowgirl, Cottagecore etc. Retailers churn out products that only really make sense on tropical getaway - how much cost per wear are you really getting out of that crochet cover up?
Despite de-influencing movements, warmer months are a breeding ground for haul videos, with aggressive markdowns enticing more people to stock up for upcoming trips or refresh their wardrobes for next year. Videos with #haul on US TikTok experience definitive spikes coinciding with the summer months and then again in December/January following the festive period. This summer, use of the hashtag reached a three-year high, with excessive seasonal consumption habits showing no signs of slowing down.
It might be the heat but I do feel like my brain gets fried thinking about summer fashion. On holidays in June, I kept fantasizing about that white House of Sunny two-piece with the seashell appliqué. Once the post-holiday afterglow wore off I realised in reality I would never wear this. The majority of my time is spent in the grimy streets of Melbourne’s north, how long would I actually expect to keep a white set clean?
As I previously wrote in Silly Little Outfits Volume 4, “the reality of summer holiday dressing is you usually never look how you envisioned on your moodboard and hopefully, you don’t care. You’re too busy dripping in sweat or at least enjoying yourself.” Let’s normalise not buying a brand new wardrobe for every holiday or temperature fluctuation, please and thank you.
The Basic Bitch of Today & Tomorrow
The initial transition from Hot Girl Summer to Sad Girl Autumn is welcomed by a mixture of joy and ridicule. Fall fashion is romanticized as we seek out the sartorial influences of nostalgic outfits to get cozy in from pop culture à la Gilmore Girls, When Harry Met Sally and (my fave) Practical Magic.
TikTok tutorials show us how to achieve Cold Girl Makeup to look like a baby snow bunny. While tan lines have been glamorized, I’m yet to see the Gen Z give the same treatment to the inescapable sweaty upper lips and winged bangs from the forehead perspiration of summer.
In the same breath, fall aesthetics are also heavily memed. The internet unequivocally dubbed fall the Season of the Basic Bitch, as Christian Girl Autumn starter packs of Ugg boots, skinny jeans and Starbucks pumpkin spice lattes circulate once more.
In Melbourne, this look doesn’t directly translate. Aussies may have invented Ugg boots and each year, American-style Halloween becomes more of a big deal but it hits different what with occurring in spring and all. Also, Starbies culture isn’t really a thing in Melbourne unless you’re a tourist, us being pretentious coffee wankers and what not. That said, we do have our own brand of “basic autumnal aesthetic” reserved for anyone wearing a black Kathmandu puffer jacket and walking the Tan.
I remember back in 2019 writing about the VSCO Girl (remember her?) as an evolution of the Basic Bitch and someone being offended by the term. Being basic is possibly the lowest blow you could receive in a fashion context, though is it all that deep? Turns out it was the “Bitch” part they weren’t too happy about, anyway.
In 2023,
wrote In Defence Of Basic Bitch Taste for Fashion Tingz that the term “suggests people, typically women, aren’t interesting enough, they’re not cool enough, and they don’t have any real personality or taste that allows them to cultivate their sense of style,” with the subgroup getting the last laugh now Uggs and Juicy Couture are unironically back in fashion.
So what constitutes as a Basic Bitch today? Does she exist in the summertime? If its unoriginality, haven’t we all become a little bit basic in cultivating personal style with constant algorithmic distractions pushing us to buy all the same stuff?
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the formula of the Cool Girl Uniform which kept popping up on my feed under the pretence of “personal style.” When summer eventually kicks off in Australia, I predict everyone will be wearing jorts, boxer shorts, football jerseys and colored sneakers, a look that will probably be labeled “basic” by 2026 given its overexposure.
Or, is basic-ness rooted in whiteness and wealth? Rory Gilmore comes to mind who embodies both (and from what I’ve seen of Gilmore Girls she real basic) as preppy fashion muscles its way back into the limelight.
recently wrote a stellar piece, dear j.crew, i'll never be your best american girl, on the brand still capitalizing on the marketability of whiteness through the relaunch of its catalogue, which depicted “idealized upper-class white lifestyles.”Based on the recent SS25 shows, these upper-crust themes continue to spill out. Look no further than Ralph Lauren’s show at the Hamptons, set amongst white picket fences and thoroughbreds with supermodels choppered in from Manhattan. The brand’s style notes described the collection as “exploring the natural beauty and free-spirited ease found in the tapestry of Hamptons life” (rich people life) and included modern sportswear for “weeks spent riding horses, catching waves and setting sail” (rich people activities).
I’m perfectly happy with what’s already in my wardrobe, considering all we really have to look forward to for next summer is peak basic. Though I still have no idea what to wear for those warm Melbourne nights where the fruit bats fly over head. I’m thinking black.
aw thank you for the shoutout! 🩷 this was such an interesting read — i love deep dives like this!! plus that stat about dating sites preferring summer photos is SO weird but SO interesting. the joys of being a woman 🥴🤧
I am so happy to finally find an Aussie fashion writer on Substack!! So nice to read articles that are actually relevant to me and the seasons I am experiencing. Thank you xx