Even though Jojo Siwa had us all wearing bows in elementary, they seem to never leave the fashion trends. Since late summer and beginning fall of 2023, every two out of five videos in my ‘for you page’ on TikTok are girls wearing bows or using them as decoration almost everywhere: in hairstyles, tattooed on their skin, painted on their nails, tied on christmas trees, handbags and even around Raising cane’s chicken tenders or boy’s biceps. This tiktok trend called “coquette” infected almost every girl’s life in the cutest way possible.
The “coquette” style has been around for years, a very feminine style with soft pink, pearls, florals bedsheets, Lana del Rey music, flats and corsets, it mainly originated from very feminine fashion trends, such as Japanese Lolita fashion, but has become more popularized in the last fall.
It all began with viral TikToks of girls tying bows around their pets, toilet paper, gym equipment and even ice cubes with the song “Let the Light In” by Lana del Rey. Then videos of ribbons on food went viral and called it ‘girl dinner’ with 241.7K videos in the hashtag, making it the most popular trend on the app in the United States, according to TikTok. This trend allowed girls to be relatable and post their random meals, like chicken nuggets with chocolate milk, a dinner that we girls understand.
Hailey Bieber joined the trend and made it more trendy through her platform, inspiring her followers, mainly her target audience the ‘clean girls’, by posting pictures wearing casual outfits with cute ribbons tied on her short hair. Other celebrities such as Madison Beer, Sydney Sweeney, Jennifer Lopez, Emma Watson, Billie Eilish, Selena Gomez and Kendall Jenner experimented with the ‘clean girl coquette’ aesthetic on the red carpet.
Girls on TikTok posted their hair tutorials and cute ways to add bows into their daily life. Fashion influencers on Tiktok created inspiring looks with bows to ‘spice up their outfits,’ and many brands like Edikted took advantage of this and came up with items like: bow earrings, rings, necklaces, jeans, phones cases and many others, catching the girly community’s attention.
With the “Barbie” movie, this trend has united many women through their feminine side and nostalgia for their childhood.Women are proving that you can be both feminine and strong through this ‘coquette’ fashion and I am excited to see how this trend grows. So, the next time you are missing your childhood or just need a little feminine boost, tie a bow on it and show them what you are made of.
