Fashion
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Messy is chic again. But is the world ready for my kind of crumpled grubbiness? | Emma Beddington
['Emma Beddington']
Fashion | The Guardian
The mess revival Lau observes in style has also been gathering momentum in other areas: goblin mode, bed rotting and sloppy, blurred Instagram photo dumps.
But instead, I find myself thinking there’s mess and mess, and the boring kind is never cool.
Because while the aesthetics of mess, the performance of it, have become acceptable, even aspirational, I don’t think we’re any more tolerant of the real mess of life.
Sexy dishevelment, visual signifiers of a wild night, an online breadcrumb trail of exciting unravelling, a curated tablescape of mismatched crockery, spills and stubbed-out cigs – chic.
I’d love ordinary mess to become timelessly chic, like a crisp white shirt, but I fear that’s about as likely as me keeping one clean.