Europe becomes a TikTok aesthetic, after the fascination for the Parisian and the French

While some Europeans dream of going to the United States to try to live ” the american dream In the land of Uncle Sam, one fantasizes about Europe. In the same way that American TikTokeus discover Biafine and make toast as if it were a miraculous day cream, it is now the turn of the European style to be completely essential.

On TikTok the United States fantasizes about a “European style”

When you live in Europe, you can vaguely tell yourself that the British don’t dress like the Italians who don’t dress like the Germans. But this is already making irrelevant generalizations. Even within a single country, styles differ greatly from city to city and simply from person to person. The style of ” The Parisian in the singular feminine it exists only in the eyes of people who do not live in the capital and make it a generality. Which may sound funny.

Following the Covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions, the United States is reopening to the world and reconfiguring its fantastical vision of Europe as a kind of cultural and aesthetic block. The result is several hashtags and TikTok trends in which American women imagine the looks they will wear for a vacation in the Old Continent. Which is fun enough to look at with a European eye who knows only too well how we are far from forming such a homogeneous unity what does Uncle Sam think.

#EuropeanStyle and #EuropeCore become a TikTok aesthetic

According to Instagram, over the past 90 days, the hashtag #EuropeanStyle has grown by more than 40% on the platform while #EuropeTrip has grown by more than 25%, American media reports. fashionista. According to Larissa Gargaro, head of Meta’s stylists’ strategic partners, this is partly due to the increase in the number of people traveling after the lifting of some pandemic restrictions, to the rise of the #GRWM (Get Ready with me: a video where we show how we prepare to go out) and when we come back from fashion weeks in physics:

“Europe has always been romanticized and this rings particularly true with luxury fashion. There is something idyllic about dressing in the style of these places, especially during the summer months. Although the socio-political climate is volatile everywhere, the trend certainly has to do with a desire to escape the reality of what is happening in the United States and embody the energy and spirit of elsewhere. “

Hand in hand with #EuropeStyle, other hashtags such as #EuropeCore are also emerging. There is no shortage of midi dresses with fluid and fluffy cuts for a bohemian look (a sort of false reinvention of the style of “La Parisienne” à la Jeanne Damas and spouses, actually).

But also many outfits inspired by the seventies, complete with vintage pieces, such as suede overshirts (or better in goat suede, in general, if we want to be precise).

An idealized and backward Europe at the service of a class vision?

In short, it is therefore a postcard “Europe”, deliberately retrograde, which stands out from these hashtags to be watched with fun from the Old Continent to get a better idea of ​​what we envy. And maybe learn to appreciate it again, who knows.

But in the wake of EuropeCore a form of elitism or classism is also emerging, as this is often confused with what TikTok (in particular) calls style “ old money “. You understand: the BCBG style, very clean, very bourgeois, as opposed to a” new money “, New rich people who try at all costs to appear flashy, to demonstrate their new class belonging.

Behind these simple hashtags of suitcases, imaginary and otherwise, to travel around Europe in the aftermath of the restrictions of a pandemic that is anything but over, there are therefore issues of bad taste and good taste, and therefore of class: who has access to leisure holidays far away and that does not have access to them, having to be content with fantasizing about them …

Front page photo credit: TikTok screenshot.