The Clean Girl Era Didn’t Empower Women. It Gave Us Another Standard to Fail.

India Elting Robert
Jul 27
4 min read

The image of Hailey Bieber smoking in Interview Magazine has been analysed by numerous publications. But to understand what it really means, a feminist lens is necessary. Is smoking back? Is the queen of the clean girl aesthetic promoting this seemingly off-brand habit? The moment captured is not about her potentially having a secret nicotine habit. It represents something much deeper.

The problem with our culture today is that we don’t care about how women are feeling. The old saying “women should be seen, but not heard” lives on today in insidious ways. The subliminal messaging across the board is: women should have their shit together, and if you don’t, look like you do. This is why, slowly but surely, people are rejecting the clean girl image. Even Hailey Bieber herself has started revealing layers of her own humanity in recent years. The hate she has received is a testament to the fact that we hold women to an impossible standard. Even calm, cool, collected women like her are given a hard time. An image of her smoking is, whether she meant it this way or not, a feminist statement. A move that says: you’re going to talk shit about me anyway, so fuck it, I’ll do what I want.

The relief of the clean girl, and its limits

I’ve seen dedicated clean girls do a 180 in recent months. In some ways the trend was, and still is, empowering in the sense that it became cool to be very organised and together. There was less pressure to embody the cool, nonchalant girl persona, which is exhausting and inauthentic for many women. There are aspects of this trend that I don’t think will ever leave the culture, like a focus on skincare and the space for minimalism. In truth, I think a clean girl lives inside all of us. As the Danes call it, hygge, to be cosy, is a feeling we all crave sometimes. Putting on a nice face mask, lighting a scented candle, and reading on your kindle is a vibe we all want to varying degrees. But women are multi-dimensional, and we need space to explore, play, and wear many hats. Grunge is back, hallelujah.

“It’s supposed to be natural, but it’s quite manufactured. It looks kind of tired now. Before, it did look clean and fresh.” - A readers response

The label itself is the problem

When we talk about this trend it’s important to mention comparison between women. When the clean girl aesthetic came along it forced a label on girls who had already been living this way, and pressured others to conform to its standards. The bottom line is, we’re sick and tired of pleasing the patriarchal gaze. There’s a realness women are craving to express.

“I somehow got labelled a clean girl, but I’ve always been this way. Just because the trend is going away doesn’t mean I’m going to stop being like this.” - A readers response

Carolyn Bessette and the permission to do both

The rise of shows like Love Story, depicting Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, have shown us that women can be both. Carolyn had minimalist outfits, a high profile boyfriend, and a great job. She was also at the afters, seen fighting with her boyfriend, and photographed with unbrushed hair. Her depiction in Love Story is, I would argue, when the tides began to turn, and women were given permission to do both.

The Sarah Pidgeon Rhode collaboration had some people questioning whether Carolyn Bessette should be labelled a clean girl at all. Who gets included or excluded from this label? And maybe the label itself, not the aesthetic, is what pits women against one another. There was also a lot of rhetoric on TikTok about how Carolyn probably would have hated a show about her, since she was a very private person who wanted to have her fun in private. Although that is something Ryan Murphy’s conscience will have to grapple with.

The image was never sustainable

The rise and fall of figures like Matilda Djerf, an icon within the clean girl aesthetic, show us that the image itself is unsustainable. The pendulum has swung the other way in a way that is still extreme in a different direction. The recent Gucci shows have been heavy on the smokey eye and the edge. A reaction always happens before everything levels out. In the meantime, let's not bully the girls still presenting as "clean girl" please.

With figures like Hailey Bieber lose their slick backs and wellness routines? No. This is more about the culture embracing that women can be multi-dimensional. The clean girls will keep doing their thing because they were like that before clean girl became a label. Similar to Hailey Bieber, figures like Carolyn Bessette were torn apart in the media, expected to be perfect and then terrorised for any perceived flaw. Let this pendulum swing be more about women being able to branch out, and girls who were never really clean girls being able to be who they are. In conclusion, I think we can all agree it's time to stop putting women in boxes.