Dressing Like a Performative Girl
+ the performative fashion debate, a “Racist Uncle Loafer”, SKIMS cocaine seizure and more
Hey, hi, hello! Welcome back to Fashion Tingz.
Last week, I wrote about how sexiness is evolving and what it means to dress sexy in 2026 in a post titled ‘Bring Sexy Back’. I posted said newsletter to LinkedIn, and then the post got removed for “promoting adult content”. Lol.
With all of the nonsense content that makes the rounds these days, I find it interesting that my little post got taken down, yet we’re constantly being drip-fed AI fruit slop and such and are now in a Slopocalypse as a result.
That being said, this has been one of my better performing posts as of late, so thanks for reading and engaging! And a big middle finger to platforms that refuse to promote content not generated for the sake of an algorithm.
— J’Nae xoxo
IN THIS EDITION: Performative girl discourse. Enfants Riches Déprimés sells a “Racist Uncle Loafer”. Sneaker brand On’s earnings are on the up. Giambattista Valli buys back namesake brand. Chanel sees the light thanks to Blazymania. $8.4 million worth of cocaine was smuggled into the UK in a SKIMS shipment.
I saw this TikTok and it pissed me off instantly… until I realised it was satire. Or at least, I think it’s satire. But then it got me thinking about how labelling things as performative is like flogging a dead horse; we’ve overused that term so much that it’s meaningless. Alas, the performative girl has made her way over to the fashion space.
But what does it mean to dress performatively? The Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of performative is “relating to or marked by public, often artistic performance”, “made or done for show (as to bolster one’s own image or make a positive impression on others)”, and “determined and reinforced by the repeated performance of socially prescribed acts and behaviours rather than by biological factors”. When viewing this through the lens of fashion, dressing performatively is supposedly when someone wears clothes not because they actually like them, but because they want to signal something: morality, intelligence, political awareness, taste, wealth, irony, sustainability, coolness, and so on and so forth.
The problem is that fashion has always been performative. That’s literally the point. You don’t accidentally become a person wearing a knee-length leather trench and micro sunglasses, and nobody stumbles into a ballet flat and bloomer shorts combination by coincidence. Fashion is communication, a language we intuitively know but often fail to grasp. Sometimes it’s subconscious, sometimes it’s calculated, and it’s often both things at once. Getting dressed is one of the oldest performances we participate in.
And yet, lately, performative has become fashion’s favourite insult. It’s deployed with the smugness of someone announcing they’re above trends while simultaneously filming a seven-part TikTok series about why everyone else is trying too hard. The “performative girl” accusation tends to emerge whenever a particular style, or aesthetic, becomes visible to the masses. Suddenly, wearing vintage is performative sustainability. Reading on the Tube in a long wool coat is performative academia. Carrying a slogan canvas tote bag is an elaborate social deception.
Not every aesthetic gets hit with the performative label equally. Nobody calls ultra-glam or androgynous dressing performative in the same way they do “clean girl,” “office siren,” “coastal grandmother,” or the deeply exhausting “frazzled English woman” aesthetic. Why? Because styles associated with aspiration, intellect, morality, or cultural awareness trigger suspicion in people. The red flags, warning sirens and alarm bells go off.
We’ve entered an era where sincerity is embarrassing, but self-awareness is currency. Everyone must be in on the joke at all times. You can wear something outrageous, but only if you signal irony. You can love fashion, but not too much. You can care about aesthetics, but only if you pretend you don’t. The modern internet rewards detached coolness above all else. So when someone appears earnest in their self-presentation, whether they’re performing or not, people instinctively want to puncture it.
Which brings us to another exhausting phenomenon that’s been triggering me (and you, too, probably): why is every aesthetic now a “girl”? Tomato girl. Theatre girl. Art girl. Vanilla girl. We’ve infantilised identity into an endless carousel of micro-branded womanhoods designed for algorithmic consumption. Everything outfit must now fit into a digestible archetype, because nuance doesn’t trend. What’s up with that?
The girlification of culture feels deceptively harmless, but it’s oddly reductive. It flattens women into costumes as entire identities become SEO-friendly aesthetics. You’re no longer just someone who likes vintage tailoring, old Céline, and carrying a battered Penguin Classic in your bag. No, you’re apparently a “literary girl.” It packages personality into marketable shorthand, which is convenient for TikToks and algorithms that survive on categorisation.
Maybe this is why the performative discourse thrives so aggressively online, because big socials have collapsed the boundary between identity and branding. People are no longer just existing publicly; they’re curating themselves within an attention economy. We’re all just hustling for scraps of eyeballs on a screen. Every outfit exists beside captions, playlists, photo dumps, affiliate links, and moodboards. So it’s no surprise that we’re becoming deeply suspicious of authenticity when the digital world itself incentivises performance.
Sometimes people genuinely like things just because. I mean, does there need to be another reason? Maybe the girl wearing hyper-feminine vintage dresses and lace gloves actually loves them. Maybe the sustainability influencer genuinely enjoys repairing clothes. Maybe the clean girl really does just like slick buns and gold hoops. I know I go from one visual style to another on a weekly basis. The internet often assumes ulterior motives, because we’ve collectively become incapable of believing in uncomplicated enjoyment.
Calling everything performative also creates this bizarre moral hierarchy where some people position themselves as the enlightened observers of everyone else’s supposed fakery. It’s less cultural critique and more superiority complex disguised as discernment. You’ll notice that many performative girl callouts don’t actually critique systems, but individuals. Specifically women. Specifically, women who are visible online.
There’s a kind of self-congratulatory cruelty embedded within internet callout culture now. A desire to expose someone as secretly shallow, fake, cringeworthy, and trying too hard. And TikTok’s algorithm feeds this instinct because outrage performs exceptionally well. Rage bait is engagement bait. The quickest route to virality is no longer aspiration; it’s accusation.
“Look at this girl pretending to be old money.”
“Look at this girl pretending to read.”
“Look at this girl pretending to thrift.”
Everyone becomes a detective searching for evidence that someone else is fraudulent. Ironically, the people most obsessed with identifying performance and calling it out are often performing too, whether they’ll admit it or not. The anti-performative stance is now its own thing entirely.
We humans are contradictory beings. Sometimes we wear clothes because they reflect who we are, and sometimes because they reflect who we want to become. Sometimes we wear clothes because we saw someone hot in Philadelphia wearing a barn jacket or someone stylish in Seoul wearing skirts layered over jeans, and we experienced a spiritual fashion awakening. None of this is morally corrupt.
Maybe the issue isn’t that people are performative, maybe it’s that the internet demands constant proof of authenticity from strangers who owe us none. And maybe we need to stop treating self-expression like a courtroom cross-examination. Dress in all your trend-led performative clickbait glory, or dress in your average Joe mediocrity. Either way, life is a performance these days, so if you’re gonna play the game, play it on your own terms.
Enfants Riches Déprimés is now selling a loafer titled the “Racist Uncle Loafer.” Supposedly edgy, supposedly satirical, but mostly just another example of luxury fashion mistaking provocation for substance. And honestly, this isn’t new. It fits neatly into a broader trend in fashion where antagonising minorities gets repackaged as “boundary-pushing art direction” for people too detached to tell the difference between critique and cosplay. JEĀN CLĀUDE, creator of the brand, publicly called out ERD and Henri Alexander Levy following this release. He’s no longer involved with the brand and had already stepped away before this kicked off.
Swiss sneaker brand On reported its latest earnings last week and, unsurprisingly, spent a good portion of the victory lap talking about margins. The company hit a record first quarter, with gross margins climbing to 64.2%, up from 59.9% the year prior. For context, that puts On ahead of legacy sportswear giants like Nike and Adidas, and edging close to Hermès territory at 71.1%.
Giambattista Valli announced that he will reacquire full ownership of his brand from Artémis, marking the start of a new independent chapter. In an era where most designers eventually become employees of the conglomerates built to “support” them, Valli is doing the increasingly rare thing: taking the keys back. The move signals a return to a brand shaped less by quarterly targets and more by the instincts of the designer whose name is on the label.
Chanel is back in growth mode, thanks to Blazymania. The French house reported full-year revenues of $19.3 billion, up 3% at reported exchange rates and 1.8% on a comparable basis — a notable rebound after last year’s slowdown. What’s interesting is that Chanel’s recovery doesn’t seem driven by gimmicks or endless collaborations, but by the increasingly old-fashioned idea of tightening operations and investing in craft.
Jonathan Andic, son of late Mango founder Isak Andic, was arrested in Spain as part of an ongoing homicide investigation tied to his father’s 2024 death. Isak Andic died after falling from a cliff while hiking with his son, a case that authorities are now revisiting. Following the billionaire founder’s death, Jonathan and his sisters inherited control of the global fashion empire. But the story unfolding around Mango now feels less like corporate succession and more like a reminder that behind the polished façade of luxury and retail dynasties are family empires often as complicated, fragile, and opaque as the brands themselves.
UK authorities recently uncovered around $8.4 million worth of cocaine concealed inside a shipment of SKIMS underwear. The discovery led to the arrest and subsequent 13-year prison sentence of a truck driver linked to the smuggling operation, closing the loop on a scheme that relied on one very literal interpretation of “hidden in plain sight.” Officials were quick to clarify that SKIMS had no involvement in the incident.
Everlane once built its entire identity on being the conscientious alternative to fast fashion. Now, it’s reportedly being acquired by Shein for $100 million. The deal has already been compared to “SeaWorld buying PETA,” which is perhaps unfair to SeaWorld, but captures the general mood. Everlane, long positioned as the poster child of ethical basics, finds itself orbiting a company synonymous with hyper-speed production and industrial-scale trend replication.
The British Fashion Council has added another name to fashion’s scholarship roll call: COS. Joining the class of 2026 with a new education partnership designed to fund and mentor a BA or MA student from a BFC Colleges Council member university, this move places COS alongside an increasingly formidable scholarship line-up — Chanel, Dior, Joe Casely-Hayford, Saint Laurent and Barbour.
Roberto Cavalli is entering its next era draped, fittingly, in global ambition as Marquee Brands has signed an agreement to acquire a majority stake in the Italian fashion house. Dubai’s Damac Group will stay on as a strategic partner. Set to close in Q2 2026, the deal also appoints Milan-based The Level Group as Cavalli’s operating engine across Europe and the U.S., overseeing everything from womenswear and menswear to handbags and footwear. Looks like Cavalli is being recalibrated for a very international future.
James Murdoch — son of Rupert Murdoch, architect of modern tabloid power — is buying into the very kind of cerebral media ecosystem his father rarely had patience for. Through Lupa Systems, Murdoch is acquiring New York magazine, Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network in a deal reportedly worth around $300 million, taking ownership of roughly half of Vox Media. The irony is particularly rich: New York magazine was once owned by Rupert Murdoch himself, meaning the title has effectively completed a full dynastic orbit. James Murdoch insists he isn’t interested in a “daily news business,” but rather in “longer-form, thoughtful journalism that can really speak to the culture.” Which sounds wonderful in theory, although media history suggests that whenever a Murdoch promises to protect culture, culture usually takes a backseat.
Edward Enninful’s EE72 has entered its Substack era. In 2026, editors-in-chief are trading glossy pages for inbox intimacy. Describing the platform as “the natural next step,” Enninful says EE72’s Substack will be a home for longer conversations, interviews and personal reflections from the creatives who inspire him. Which, translated from fashion-world dialect, means less front-row spectacle and more intellectual soft power. As media continues its migration from print empires to personality-driven publishing, this feels like a reminder that the most valuable thing in fashion today isn’t access to clothes, it’s access to perspective.