Why do girls dress? To speak without words. To armor themselves. To flirt with fantasy. Dressing is always double-edged: part self-expression, part role-play.
1. Girls Dress to Express Themselves
Girl’s outfits are a way of speaking when words aren’t enough. Clothes can signal identity, push back against social norms, or create a safe space for vulnerability. To see how fashion works as expression, let’s look at three styles: Chola, Boho and E-girl.
The Chola Style: Styling As Armor and Voice
The chola look grew out of Mexican American and Chicano communities. It’s signature image includes slicked-back hair, sharply drawn eyebrows and dark lip liner filled with a lighter shade. Baggy Dickies, Bandanas and cropped shirts. Gold hoops and heavy nameplate necklaces complete the look.
But chola fashion rooted in serious topic, it is a form of cultural pride and defiance – a refusal to assimilate into mainstream white beauty standards. The style also reflected the realities of working-class life, where clothes were often shared with brothers, repurposed or bought cheaply at local stores. By toughening up the “cholo” gangster look and adding feminine touches, these young women carved out a visible, powerful identity. It’s style as both armor and voice. [1]
The Boho Style: Flowing Silhouettes as Rebellion
Bohemian style can be traced back to 19th-century Paris, where artists and writers rejected restrictive corsets and instead wrapped themselves in flowing silhouettes, floral prints, velvet, and lace. This spirit was later carried forward by the hippies, who used it to reject war and authoritarian governance. At its core, boho style is built on long skirts, maxi dresses, peasant blouses, fringe, patchwork, and earthy accessories like leather belts, floppy hats, or layers of beaded jewelry. Fabrics are often natural – cotton, linen, suede – and the silhouettes flow rather than constrain.
Boho fashion has the meaning of refusing to dress for men (to take off the corsets), instead these girls dress for self-comfort and freedom. And the intention to show artistic personality and some counterculture values like anti bourgeois. Also, it can be viewed as an act of quite rebellion against the rigid structures of society. [2]
The E-girl Style: Edgy Outsider Calling for Community
The E-girl is the child of several underground cultures: From the goth and punk from the 70s and 80s to the emo trend at around 2000s and finally absorbs anime and gamer influences from the internet age. [3] An E-girl’s outfit often combines dyed streaks of hair, winged eyeliner with little drawn hearts under the eyes, plaid skirts or ripped jeans, and chokers. Accessories lean toward studded belts, chains, and playful nods to anime.
The style speaks for kid who often feel like outsiders in school, on the edge of the “popular” circle. Online, through social media, anime and games, they find belonging. The E-girl look is edgy but self-aware, a way of performing identity in virtual spaces where judgement feels less harsh.
Girls Dress to Role-playing Others
But fashion isn’t always autobiography, sometimes it’s performance. Just like the dress-up games girls played as kids, styling when they’ve grown up can be the extension of this type of game. Girls step into characters, and outfits become stage costumes. The point is not just “this is me” but “this is who I want to be, or who I want you to see.”
The Clean Girl: Work-life Balance Wish
The Clean Girl aesthetic emerged in the early 2020s and gained visibility primarily through TikTok and Instagram. It is characterized by dewy skin, a slicked-back bun, small hoop earrings, and the frequent use of functional accessories such as claw clips. Typical clothing includes yoga leggings paired with white socks pulled over, cropped tanks, or sports bras. A large Stanley Cup water bottle is often part of the visual iconography, signaling discipline and wellness. [4]
Although presented as effortless, the style demands significant investment in skincare, cosmetics, and grooming. The natural look requires extensive preparation: hair products to maintain the slick bun, high-end makeup to mimic bare skin, and a tightly curated wardrobe dominated by white, beige, pink, and soft gray. [5] From my view, the “clean girl” trend is more like a wish – to have 8-hour sleep, yoga every day and keep organized. Especially in today’s word the city girls are in fact lack sleep and short of time to keep themselves “clean”.
The Office Siren: A Wish to Legitimize Being Sexy at Work
The Office Siren draws from business-casual trends of the 1990s and early 2000s, reinterpreted for a contemporary audience. Signature pieces include fitted trousers, tailored button-ups, pencil skirts cut above the knee, bayonetta-style glasses, and kitten heels.
Many doubt whether this trend is “pushing women back” for it makes you too hot for the work, and the office harassment topic may be raised. [6] However, my view is, now the mainstream is women being encouraged to adopt neutral, de-gendered “power dressing” as a way to signal professionalism and female power. But this ism neglected a group of women who actually want to be attractive and get attention at work. For them, the Office Siren aesthetic is a way to rebel against the now-dominant “power woman” image built on de-gendered clothing.
I doubt whether the prevailing idea of empowering women by de-gendering is truly healthy. In my memory, when I was a kid, my mom and other adult working women dressed very much like the “Office Siren”—of course, not as exposing as today’s version. But if I look at the clothes my mom left me, they are tailored dresses cut above the knee, tight shirts and sweaters that emphasize female features. The point is, twenty years ago in China, nobody said such clothes were improper. And whether men actually felt uncomfortable is also questionable—why didn’t my dad ever say “you shouldn’t wear that” to my mom?
To conclude, the Office Siren trend reflects a wish from hot girls to claim the right to be the Office Siren at work. And maybe the wish also from women who want to be both hot and have workplace status.
The Old Money Style: Looking for the American Dream
The Old Money aesthetic is defined by its association with East Coast American elites of the mid-20th century. Typical elements include cashmere sweaters, pleated skirts, pressed oxford shirts, loafers, pearls, and understated tailoring. The color palette is muted — navy, cream, beige, and forest green dominate — projecting stability and discretion rather than flamboyance.
Its resurgence in the 2020s coincides with broader economic insecurity among younger generations. On one level, some says it reflects nostalgia for an imagined past of financial security and cultural confidence in the West. There is another view that it’s a mocking to the fading American Dream. Today’s young Americans may know they’ll never own a house, so they dress like the people who ruined it all for them. The ironic use is just like the way Black and Latinx Americans once donned exaggerated Zoot suits as a retort to traditional men’s tailoring.[7]
From my view, the Old Money aesthetic expresses a desire for stability, continuity, and insulation from financial pressure. The growing popularity of gold jewelry and “investment dressing” signals a similar intuition: clothing becomes a symbolic hedge against instability.
Conclusion
Dressing is both autobiography and performance. When you scroll through trends, you’re not just consuming fashion — you’re window-shopping identities.
And how can you tell if a girl is dressing to express or to act? A simple way is to ask: is it status-quo or status-future? The definition isn’t strict. If a girl has lived the clean girl lifestyle long before the trend, then it’s her identity and life philosophy, not just an act. But if a girl knows nothing about anime and suddenly tries on the E-girl style, she may just be role-playing.
Next time you get dressed, ask yourself: is this autobiography — or theater? 😉