brat summer mentality, charm summer reality
Girlhood is a spectrum and I'm filled with duality.
“One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life, and there is nothing better.”1 I’ve latched onto this sentiment during so many critical times in my life. Like a buoy, when I feel lost in an uncharted sea.
It’s an incredibly powerful and radical act - to discover who one is and know it wholeheartedly. Because in this life, we wear so many masks yet filled with such multitude. Who we’re expected to be, who we wish we were, and who we really are sometimes blur into one messy, indistinguishable thing. It’s why I think astrology and eras and insert-vibe-here summers have become so integral to girlhood and the discovery of personal identity.
I’m an Aries sun, so of course Charli XCX’s brat speaks to me on a cosmic level. The ethos of a brat summer™️ is about being yourself, releasing your inhibitions, and living your life unabashedly. The mentality speaks to so many qualities within myself that I’m so wildly proud of — fierce enthusiasm, an unwavering sense of self, sharp honesty.
And as much as it’s a mindset, brat is a lifestyle. Being brat is “a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter, and a strappy white top with no bra.” It’s a smokey eye from the night before (because, honestly, no one’s even gone to sleep) on the coolest girl you’ve ever seen in your life.
I’ve always been infatuated with the vibe. From watching Skins (2007) at far too young of an age like a curious little child peering through the window into an alien world to sneaking my only cigarette from my mom’s purse when I was 16 wanting so desperately to be a Tumblr, The 1975 cool girl (and being too scared to even smoke it, very The Fault In Our Stars coded). Alas, bratting out has always been so far from my true nature — never able to go further than a state of wistful dreaming.
But when I popped in my AirPods and pressed play on Clairo’s third studio album Charm last month, it all clicked. I knew exactly what the reality of this summer was for me. It’s a charm summer.
This album was made for dilly dallying around — at a farmer’s market (or if you’re me, the produce isles of Kroger), throwing a blanket out in the grass to soak in the sunshine and light breeze, doing the dishes on a Sunday afternoon, quite literally making little charm bracelets, or stretching and folding a soft mound of fresh sourdough. All while having the champagne bubble feelings of a silly little crush on your mind. Charm begs you to take both hands off the digital wheel and dive them into something tactile, something real.
The warm, squishy, simmering soul of the record — it eloquently captures what it’s like to be a soft girl. Bedroom pop with a Karen Carpenter level of depth and richness. It’s an album for the touch starved queens, an invitation into the desires of what a young woman wants and how electric those feel. Exchanged glances with a cute stranger. Flirty repartee. The themes are so sensual, in a very thought girl way.
“It’s that thing where you’re, like, I don’t want to be hit on, and I don’t want you to cross the line with me—I just want to know that you think I’m hot, and then I can go home,” Clairo told The New Yorker this past spring. “Because sometimes that’s really it. There’s this feeling that you get every so often, which is loneliness, and the quick fix is just someone being, like, ‘Are you an actress?’”
So while the world is having such a brat summer™️, what’s a charm girl to do? Well, luckily, they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Inside us there lives two wolves — and their names are Charli and Claire. The summer (and hell, fall and winter too) can be brat in theory and charm in practice. Or the other way around, if that speaks to you. Because girlhood is a complex, beautiful, wondrous spectrum.
So while I sit in bed, tucked in by nine, face fully washed and slathered in creams, laptop out, Sims 4 booted, in the biggest holiest tee shirt you’ve ever seen, ice cold Olipop in hand, and Lord of the Rings lofi beats playing for ambiance, I’m going feel like the baddest bitch to ever do it... and what’s more brat than that.
Welcome to my little section at the end of each newsletter where I share some of my favorite things! With WHAT’S IN MY BAG, I’ll recommend some beauty and lifestyle essentials that I can’t go anywhere without. And in ON THE AUX, I’ll share the music I have on constant rotation.
At any point in time, there are at least 2-3 lip lines floating around my bag. Since picking up Glossier’s new Lip Line in Buff, it has been the only one I reach for. When they say water-resistant and smudge-proof, baby, they mean it!
In the spirit of today’s newsletter, it’s only fitting to share the two brat and Charm tracks that I’ve had on heavyyy heavy rotation.
That’s all for today. Have fun dilly dallying, y’all! Until we chat again.
Autumn
I am just learning through a Google search that this quote came from French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal… The more you know!
this 100%, i like charm way better than brat, but def been a victim to the ~brat summer~ mindset lmao