Designing Whimsy for the Labubu’ed Lead Stare
An IYKYK understanding of contemporary humor, online culture and an intangible cool is hard to keep up with, but possible to capture between pillars of Sincere, Subversive and Satire.
Lots of talk of whimsy these past few months.
↓ Start | + Chain of miscellanea | ✳︎ Finish
+ Whimsy is being used as a prefix to describe a point of romanticism. A softness, delicacy, or an effortlessness.
+ Whimsy is not a style, a vibe, or a -core micro trend. It’s a sort of intangible, effervescent spoke of femininity that expresses as a nonchalant, sometimes ethereal, mostly eclectic (or eccentric) quality. It suggests a feeling of being carefree, while appearing to require lots of effort, or some sort of understanding of what it really means to be whimsical in style, taste, and portrayal. It’s a Gustaf Westman set. It’s a repackaging of Cottagecore and Coquettecore. It can also lean into the novelty-kitsch of Gah girls and Kidults. It’s buying trinkets. It’s asking the garlic if it doesn’t mind you taking their jackets.
+ To be whimsical is a treat.
+ It delivers a similar impact to the way demure or mindful was to quiet luxury, and how a brat hedonism was to various interpretations of indie sleaze chaos.
+ The look of whimsy is not new.
+ Whimsy as a word is far too broad (unlike demure) and therefore can be applied across evergreen styles executed in tiered skirts, ruffles, and pouf sleeves across traditional feminine palettes of pastel hues, Liberty-esque florals to bohemian-inspired fauna, earthy colors and autumnal fabrics such as corduroy, chenille and velvet.
+ Whimsy and Knowing (Molly Goddard, Simone Rocha, Cecilie Bahnsen), Whimsy and Rich (LoveShackFancy, Magnolia Pearl), or Whimsy and … Fast (Anthropologie, Free People), for example.
+ The application of whimsy to update femininity is similar to the way satire (by way of camp) is designed into Satorial Femininity. The conversation around whimsy doesn't need lingering on, but the wider context of how whimsy came to be against an online context of (often dark) senses of humor is interesting to note.
+ Too much whimsy is cringe, or worse, ugly.
+ To understand whimsy, you must understand and be up-to-date with the humor of online culture that can quickly shift from tongue-in-cheek to cringe, often through misunderstandings of what is sincere, satire, or subversion. This trickles into how clothing gets assessed online - a culture of parodies and novelty soundbites means new arrivals either get applauded as intelligent irony or dismissed as unable to be understood or accepted.
+ SINCERE Earnest Exploration/ Escapism, Genuine Comfort-Seeking or Commodification of Whimsy as Treat
The earnest pursuit of joy through infantilization or romanticization
Healing through "inner child" work made manifest in fashion
Unfiltered message through nostalgia, or the longing for the authentic thing
+ SUBVERSIVE Performative ‘Specialness’
Knowing excess - playing with codes while respecting them, consciously dressing to be ‘quirky’, different, or tagged as OTT from others.
Wearing prairie dresses to grocery stores, flower crowns to coffee shops
Creating "whimsical moments" that require an audience (or at least documentation for social media)
+ SATIRE Cynical Play
Irony requires cultural literacy - you need to know the rules to break them meaningfully
Esoteric vs. ugly becomes a subjective test for critics and audiences
Using "bad taste" as sophisticated commentary - the designer's wink to those who get the reference
✳︎ The commodification of whimsy isn't new - it's always shadowed feminine expression. From Victorian 'fancy goods' to 1950s novelty housewares to Hello Kitty's global empire, brands have consistently packaged playfulness as purchasable femininity. What's changed is the speed of the cycle and consumers' awareness of the performance — whether they buy into it or not.
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