Just Add Water: How the mermaid aesthetic became the hottest trend this summer

There’s a lot of sensational aesthetics with the core code prefix. TikTok users find something new almost every day, “play” with the old and set the trends that the whole industry is excited about.

First, under the influence of Wednesday Addams, everyone was dressed in black and the popular gothcore (which we wrote about in winter), while jolly Barbies took over the world and encouraged everyone to dress in pink from head to toe. As summer approaches, the fashion community has decided to emulate beautiful mermaids.

Today we are going to talk about the latest aesthetic, the mermaid codenamed mermaid. More precisely, not us, but the author of the Telegram channel “The Devil Wears H&M” Alena Goryacheva. Let’s give it to him!

Alena Goryacheva, author of Devil Wears H&M Telegram channel

If you haven’t heard anything about the mermaid, it could mean only one thing: you haven’t been online in the last few months because the trend is now all over the place. In today’s column, I tried to understand what it is and how you can bring sensational aesthetics into everyday life.

First of all, it’s important to understand that mermaidcore came to us from TikTok, and as you can imagine, this was largely due to The Little Mermaid movie starring Halle Bailey. By the way, she even appeared at all social events in the form of a modern siren – sky-blue dresses, year-round skirts and flowing “wet” fabrics were attached.

An important point of all the basic aspects is that you can not only dress in the style of a little mermaid, but also listen to certain music and watch movies that reflect a trend aesthetic. For example, on TikTok there are many videos on how to completely immerse yourself in the mermaid core: Netizens share playlists, books, places and much more with each other.

By the way, some are sure (surprisingly, but true) that the above actions have a therapeutic effect. After all, besides braiding shells in your hair and wearing sequin tops that mimic sequins, you can immerse yourself in the world of the little mermaid for a while and try the role. In fact, this is a basic and very important rule that many people overlook for some reason.

And now we smoothly move from theory to practice. To create a mermaid look you will need: shells, soft blue clothes, bright (like sequins) dresses and skirts, pearls, crocheted products, flowy skirts, “naked” dresses that imitate wet skin and everything related to its inhabitants. underwater world

But here it is important to note that the mermaid aesthetic does not tolerate vulgar references, so you should do without a mermaid tail and painted scales. Here all the “chip” are different. Diving into this trend means interpreting the fashion of the underwater world in your own way. And this is more subtle and even “jewelry” work. Yes, and the vision of all fashionistas is different, so an unlimited flight of fantasy is guaranteed.

By the way, not only the heroes and influencers of street style, but the entire design department began to experiment with this aesthetic. You’ve probably seen sequin bodysuits at Bottega Veneta, wet dresses at Di Petsa, shell bras at Dsquared2, and year-round skirts at Nina Ricci.

The beauty industry has not been left out either. Now the trend called mermaid skin is gaining popularity at a rapid pace. In simple terms, this is a make-up technique in which you apply glitter to the skin where, in theory, the mermaid’s scales are. The result is an effect that makes your skin glow and glow from within. As a rule, highlighters and moisturizers are used for this.

But if suddenly you absolutely do not like this bright and very gentle trend dedicated to mermaids, you should be happy because now another fashion trend called Dark mermaidcore or Sirencore has gone viral on the Web. As the name suggests, this aesthetic is much darker. Her followers don’t wear shells in their hair or wear romantic sequined dresses, they turn into sexy and dangerous sirens that break hearts at a glance.

As a rule, the “alternative mermaid” is a lover of various “dark” subcultures, black clothes and makeup, as well as categorically against all the bright trends associated with Barbie and frivolous mermaids. Here, rather, we are talking about those who, as a rule, are called mean girls. Meanwhile, the unspoken icon of the Dark mermaid core is Julia Fox.