Trashcore, intellectualism, Haelo & cool niche creators
“We’re in a midst of a changing of the guard”
Ciao!
What a week. If you did not indulge in my last letter, I turned thirty last week. A milestone birthday. One that has invited more “omg how are you feeling about it” reactions than I care to admit. I have many reflections on the turn of this new decade (mostly good) and opinions on my twenties (mostly bad) but I will save those for another day.
My thirties were ushered in with a gorgeous lunch at Di Stasio Citta with my mother, followed by a lingering illness I could not seem to shake. I spent a few solid days in bed, pseudoephedrine and Fusion’s Astra8 supplements on hand (the best) and re-emerged on Saturday for a birthday lunch with my friends.
I chose Carnation Canteen as the venue of choice. It did not disappoint. Some would say this is one of the most exciting restaurants in Melbourne right now. I have to agree. It’s tucked away on a leafy street in Fitzroy; a gorgeous 20 seat restaurant on a corner block. Inside, the walls are a kind of exposed concrete and bottles of wine line the windows. The tone is warm, relaxed and refined, with food and wine that perfectly match.
The menu is euro-leaning. We dined on the $90 set menu; it was a feast. The looks on our faces when they brought out round after round of dishes. Oysters. Scallops. Prosciutto. Fish. Chickpeas. Crispy potatoes. Pork. We drank bottle after bottle of mineral white wines from Italy and Australia. I had my dear friend Emily (owner of Pony and Neighbourhood Pizza) liaising with the staff on the wine selection; they outdid themselves. (I love having friends in hospo; you always know you are in good hands.)
I wore a thrifted blue and orange dress I had picked up from Y2K Vintage in Brick Lane right before I left London, paired it with Miista boots that are quickly becoming my entire personality. I felt like a princess. It was a surprisingly warm spring day and I was surrounded by my gorgeous friends drinking, eating, connecting, chatting.
A good omen for a new decade.
Okay, onto the good stuff:
Agenda for today’s letter:
Trashcore goes Hollywood
Niche is in
Dion Lee’s triumphant return
Trashcore goes Hollywood
Exploring its mainstreamification
There is a new trend afoot. Well, not exactly new, but its virality has intensified in recent months thanks to pop girl starlet Addison Rae and Hollywood heavyweight Timothée Chalamet.
I am always delighted when a term appears that perfectly describes an aesthetic that has been around for eons (in this case, championed by Justin Bieber). I am talking about trashcore, the term coined by The Wall Street Journal earlier this year.
They describe trashcore as an aesthetic that is “aggressively distressed, artfully mismatched and uniquely messy”, with a distinctly mid 2000s energy. NSS Magazine calls it “the mischievous twin of the glamorous, over the top Y2K aesthetic”. A perfect descriptor.
Trashcore runs adjacent to Y2K but with far more bite. It is less glossy and less accessible, which makes it inherently more subcultural. It is the kind of IYKYK visual territory fashion edgelords have obsessed over for years. I am thinking of Alana Pallister of I.AM.GIA, who has long pushed silhouettes the masses might skip but which thrive in the internet-driven fashion underground.
My mind also goes to Bianca Censori as a core muse. Her barely-there outfits, stockings, bandages and sculptural hosiery sit somewhere between avant garde performance art and pure provocation. While her looks are not trashcore in the classic Y2K sense, her aesthetic aligns with its undertones. It is deliberately wrong, inherently raw, with an aggressive refusal to be palatable or understood.
WSJ argues the aesthetic has an economic undertone. The last time Hollywood embraced trashcore with real fervour was during the GFC of 2007-2009. This could be true. But it could also just be the trend cycle doing what the trend cycle does. With Y2K now feeling less edge and more mainstream, this shift towards a look that is intentionally chaotic, dishevelled and low rent somehow just feels correct.
Niche is in
“Influence” as we know it is changing
I have been obsessed with the discourse lately around our evolving perception of influence. Gone are the days where we granted Influence with a capital I to those with high follower counts, a famous or infamous name, and little else.
We are in the midst of a changing of the guard. No influencer is cooler than the niche creator. The kind with sub-10k followers yet who holds cultural weight and lives in a world we want access to.
This evolution is unfolding against a backdrop of social upheaval. Earlier this month, The New Yorker Magazine officially declared it cool to have no followers. The Atlantic affirmed that the age of anti-social media is here. Polyester published a think piece on Gen Zs obsession with intellectualism; knowledge maxxing rather than looks maxxing is becoming the ultimate aspiration.
I worked on a brand strategy project recently that examined this very shift. Influence has long been perceived as a combination of visibility and depth. And while these two dimensions still hold up, the weighting has changed. For a long time, we perceived influence as primarily attributable to visibility. Metrics like follower count and reach held supreme. Of course, depth has always mattered. Ask any creator and engagement will be the first thing that comes to their lips.
But as our social media diets fragment, as AI produces ever more slop, and as platforms like Substack rise, depth has become increasingly critical. It is depth that now commands genuine social and cultural capital.
This shift has been a long time coming. Lest we forget, I wrote earlier this year about how all the cool girls are offline. And yet it seems this reverence for niche is becoming surprisingly mainstream. It makes perfect sense. In a world with more information than any of us could ever process, discernment and mystery have become increasingly valuable.
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As NSS Mag so aptly put it this week:
The more niche you are, the more interesting you become. The new celebrities do not have millions of followers but just a few thousand, under 50k. They post rarely, never tag anyone, and if they do, it is either by accident or for money. They live between fashion capitals or are constantly travelling, but their charm lies in not making it look like a big deal… [They are] a constellation of cool kids orbiting around a band, posting with apparent disinterest: a window, a blurry sunset in Ibiza, a flash photo from a club bathroom.
Dion Lee’s triumphant return
And it is a romantic, futuristic, ethereal dream
I was elated to see Dion Lee’s foray back into fashion earlier last week. We have discussed at length the Dion Lee collapse of May 2024, when his eponymous fashion line shocked the industry by going into liquidation. A few months ago, it was reported that Dion Lee had struck a deal with Revolve to launch a new line. Said new line, Haelo, launched last week.
It is beautiful. It is ethereal, androgynous, romantic and, of course, futuristic. All the signature hallmarks of Lee’s aesthetic. Yet tonally, it feels softer than anything he has done before. Speaking to Vogue Australia, Lee noted a sense of hyper femininity that felt apt for right now. “There is so much symbolism, mythology around angels, and afterlife and resurrection,” he also mentioned. It makes sense, given his journey over the past two years.
Personally, I love it. It’s relevant that the hyper-feminine aesthetic is emerging now. It reminds me of my reflection on the return of the Louboutin from earlier in the year. The feminine appears to be returning in full force. It’s making me feel emboldened to lean into the softer sides of self, the parts that were pushed away in the eras of lean in, girlboss, and Man Repeller.
Against the collective cultural backdrop of so much darkness and upheaval, there is a real beauty in seeing such softness emerge. In art, in fashion, in discourse, in life.
Until next time.
With gratitude,
Rach x
I loved this piece! 🎀 Can you please go more into knowledge-maxxing - I'm so curious about that shift from looks-maxxing to knowledge-maxxing / the move from looks being the dominant aspiration to now intellect and taste...
Yes to seeing trashcore everywhere!!!!