I first noticed it at a Prada show last fall. Wedged into one of those too-small-for-human-seat pouches we call chairs at fashion week, starving myself so I could afford all the boots hitting the runway in front of me, I looked up and spotted her. She was three rows in front of me, somehow looking even more chill atop a mountain of fellow impossibly cool fashion editors.
She was wearing white sneakers, high-waisted khakis, and a cropped zip-up sweatshirt. Soccer mom, upper-quarter-point, WFAPI den mother? Yes, but make it high fashion: cashmere zip-up, oversized just so, topped with a bulky gold chain necklace that tied the whole thing together not with cliché but with wink. “Ohhh, who’s that?” I hissed to the editor next to me.
I knew exactly who it was—the Parisian-born, London-based fashion blogger Camille Charrière—but who else could pull off looking like a fleece vest on purpose? “That’s trophy wife couture,” my colleague replied. “It’s everywhere.” I looked around, realizing that she was right. I’d been missing one of fashion’s most thrilling cottage-core-filled millennial renaissances: the suburban dad/pickup truck/soccer mom/trophy wife uniform, those cozy, familiar, often ridiculed aesthetics we’ve all assigned to women who don’t live in big cities and have SUVs.
Because, let’s face it: We’ve assigned those aesthetics not just to car-owning people, but to wives of other people.
The divorced women, the artists, the dominants, and all us snowflakes with our embarrassingly small closets still live in NYC, likely planning to never give up ourRealHousewivesmarathonsfor anything less crazy than cervical dystonia. Growing up in Brooklyn, my understanding of “suburban” came from weekend visits to my cousins in New Jersey and TV marathons of Desperate Housewives. I thought I understood these wedded-yet-urbanely-unencumbered types.
Trophy Wives wore diamonds and low-cut sleeveless blouses, as well as skirts designed to reveal their favorite Lululemon leggings. Soccer Moms wore gym leggings fromTarget(theirs probably Patagonia) and sneakers decidedly less cute than their Targetarriself. I could’ve drawn you a Venn diagram in my notebook of all the subcategories in between.
But here we are in 20(ugh)25, and rocking up like you probably own a label maker is now the height of style. Going viral on TikTok? Spend the day wearing loafers, wrap dresses, and pearl earrings, friend!
Trying to look like the chicest person in Seamless delivery? Add a jean jacket, loafers, and literally anything gold! And god forbid you get caught outside without a flattering pair of skinny jeans and a clean white sweater.
Suburban dad style officially hit me the first time I saw someone I knew—without irony—sporting the uniform at one of our crowded industry dinner parties in Williamsburg last summer. Emma is a friend of mine who goes by they/them. A cool art director who almost exclusively wears black, Emma once gave me a 20-minute rant about how obsessed they were with Margiela’s Tabi boots when they accidentally showed up to our dinner party wearing… a headband.
Not a chic, black leather chunky headband. Not a headband with the Margiela graffiti logo slapped across it. A WHITE HEADBAND. “I’m so stressed,” Emma said apologetically as they greeted me at the door.
I almost gasped, worried that they’d been possessed by another fashion industry friend or had some sort of existential identity crisis. “It’s Stealth Wealth Trophy Wife,” Emma deadpanned. “I’ve been really into it lately. The cardi is cashmere, though, and the jeans are Khaite, and these loafers are vintage Gucci.” Emma paused, smirking. “But I’m trying to look like I bought everything at Talbots.” Emma’s whole outfit stopped me from drinking my wine. Aspordictoire* (“wanting to look like you shop at Talbots”) is about the worst accusation you can lob at someone in our industry.
But something about seeing Emma—who was immediately surrounded by our typically-black-clad crowd—made me see the outfit in a new way. It wasn’t basic; it was shining a spotlight on basicness. It wasn’t lazy.
It was anti-fashion in the most stylish way possible. Later that night, hungover and bleary-eyed in my own messy black Marni set, I found myself wondering if I should order a tennis skirt and matching cashmere sweater from Net-a-Porter so that I, too, could avoid putting on real pants. When they arrived from Amazon two days later, I put them on.
Anddddd….they were kind of nice? The pieces looked, well, nice on me. Fresh.
Confident. Easy. I’ve since been tracking cases of suburbanitis everywhere I go: Instagram, streetstyle blogs, fashion shows, you name it.
Turns out there’s a whole lot of recreation happening right under our noses. One of the more dramatic pivots? Trophy Wife style.
These Kardashians-be-smash wardrobe essentials have been flipped on their head: The tennis skirts, gold hoop earrings, little white everything, and oversized purses remain, but they’ve been switched up in proportion, styling, and intent. Mixing ultra-femme structure with hyper-masculine edge, influencer Courtney Trop styled a vintage Hermès scarf with skinny jeans and chunky Nike slides in September. Designer Sandy Liang riffed on tennis sweaters and pearl necklaces for her Resort 2024 collection, deconstructing iconic shapes with unexpected cut-outs and dollops of surrealist flair.
It says, “I know this outfit reads as expensive and full of country club stereotypes, but I’m also wearing ripped jeans and toughing it up.” It’s not just suburban women dominating peak-fitmom-core either. Designer Todd Snyder—who designed George Bush (!!! )’spreteri-whitewear outfit for Biden’s inauguration (!!! )—just launched a collab with Ralph Lauren dedicated entirely to updating “The Boss’” playbook. Preppystalgia at its finest.
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The difference between actual Trophy Wife style and its ironic homage is obvious: Real trophy wives don’t care if their oversized Saint Laurent trench and Valentino Rockstud saddle bag are “ironic”—they just know that’s what wives are supposed to wear. Fashion’s Trophy Wife archetypes care just as much about crafting a look, but instead of finding value in conforming to a preset standard, they poke fun at it. And don’t we all just want to be more like Molly on Saved By The Bell these days?
Soccer Mom aesthetic is experiencing a similar comeback. Where the Trophy Wife leaned into old-money-Americana clichés, Soccer Mom outfits broke down into literal-function-over-form, win-win-win athleisure. Sneakers, capri pants, oversized cardigans, backpacks—you know, mom jeans but make it athleisurecore.
Seen outside the confines of suburbia, headed to museums and street style shoots wearingBalenciagabranded hoodies, jogging pants somehow darker than black pass for high-fashion riffing these days. My coworker Tyler showed up to our weekly office meeting last week wearingNorth Face fleece, boyfriend jeans that definitely weren’t skinny, white New Balance sneakers so clean they looked sucked out with a vacuum, and: the coup de grace—a monogrammed Lands’ End tote bag. * Tyler—who once wore a pantsuit made entirely of safety pins to work and frequents fashion week street style shots—couldn’t have looked more comfortable in his full-suburban-regalia. “I’m so tired of trying to look ‘interesting,’” Tyler explained when I pressed him on his dramatic department. “Why not just wear the most boring, un-fiesta shirts as possible and rock them with confidence?” True to form, Tyler has since been filling his Instagram feed with “suburban basics with an edge,”iciasually styled: neutral-colored, carefully-curated athleisure, always complemented by a pristine sneaker and perfectly proportioned tote. His next project: monogramming all his shirts.
Gen Z calling back to their mom’s closets? Sure. But there’s something more insidious going on when you notice that the routines and rituals these stereotypes embody are coming back into vogue, too.
Prep-skirt wearing these days often means adopting a Euro minimalist-inspired skincare regimen, booking weekly tennis lessons despite having never picked up a racket before, waking up at 5am to mix oat milk protein into Matcha lattes, and weekly meal prepping. Leila, a photographer friend of mine who has spent most of her career wearing Dr. Martens and vintage Juicy jackets, recently texted me a screenshot of her new bullet journal.
The multicolored schedule, color-coded with label makers and dry erase markers aplenty, was filled with Pilates classes, farmers markets, and Sundays filled withbatch cooking. Two years ago, I would’ve laughed atLeila owning a daily planner this hardcore. Now she wears theCATEGORYHER closet. “It feels very revolutionary to lean into hobbies and routines that were so coded as feminine and basic,” Leila explained when I asked her about her new fascinations over drinks last week. “Fashion people love to look cool and inaccessible.
I’m not putting that pressure on myself anymore.” There’s a reason these uniforms, and the femmes that built them out of Gap Slim_fit tees and Target jeans, have felt coded as feminine: Remember when talking about Trophy Wives and Soccer Moms largely centered around their relationships to men? Their husbands. Their kids.
These women’s identities have been codified not by their own accomplishments, but by how they support and dress men who had accomplishments. And now that irony and appreciation has flipped those power dynamics on their head, we’re all searching for permission to wear whatever the fuck we want. To be clear: There is a lot of crap out there that veers intoaight up cosplay.
Knockoff Lululemon leggings? Fake Oakleys? Dropping real money on Rachel Puente FLOWER BLOUSE just because it says, “Mom Jeans” on the tag and clapping for yourself as if you’ve landed on Pandora?
That’s not appreciation. That’s mockery. When I see someone riffing well on these tropes, I think of the actual women who put just as much (if not more!) care and creativity into curating these looks.I think of my mom, who grew up in Mexico City and Los Angeles dressing to kill—whether that meantjudge-y real-housewivesbutton-up shirts and khakis for church on Sundays or going all out in a midnight blue cocktail dress for her sorority formals.
I think of how she returned to Silicon Valley after college and shopped exclusively atCostcountil her children were in school, how she’d craft entire outfits around that single white Martha Stewart crop top she found at Ross discounts. I think of how putting effort into her look was her activism, how motherhood was herchosen profession. *** “We really leaned into theWhat Not To Wearuniform when I was growing up,” Maria Chen, another one of my favorite editors, said to me at a conference last month, dressed head-to-toe in crisp white jeans, a striped boatneck, and dainty gold jewelry (yes, elevated Trophy Wife.) “My mom was the original Trophy Wife of theChinese immigrant community. She put SO much thought into what she wore.
And nobody was cool enough to tell her she shouldn’t.” To Maria, putting together an impossibly put-together look is a love letter to her mom, not a cheap recreation of one. The difference between funny and frivolous? Appreciation.
I’ve embraced the best of both uniforms in the past year, appropriating whateversuits me best from both worlds.
From Trophy Wife, I’ve discovered the surprising comfort of tennis skirts, the staying power of gold hoops, and the sheer sexiness of doing my hair and wearing an actual bra. From Soccer Mom, I’ve finally given up fighting quarter zip sweatshirts and realized that they actually might be the holy grail of New York layering pieces, that maybe spaghetti strap tank tops were never actually my friend, and that a nice tote with several compartments is lifesaving for someone who still loses their keys on a weekly basis.
Bonus: comfy sneakers are also the new black, amirite? The thing about these trends—and the reason influencers, celebrities, and designers alike are mining them for gold—is that they’re not laughing at them. They’re taking them seriously.
As fashion writer-turned-designerRachel Antonoff told me over lunch last month, she finds more inspiration in watchingmosbysocial media than combing through Vogue runways. “There’s something so genuine about these women and how they dress,” Rachel said. “They’re not worried about wearing ‘fashion.’ They’re just showing up as themselves.” Fashion-without-the-F-fashion. Maybe that’s what we’re all going for. *I played with theFrench phrasing here because obvs whoever came up with wanting to look like Talbots had French mom energy AF. **I cannot stress this enough. If you ever meet me in real life and I’m not wearing heels, 9 times out of 10 those are the kicks I’m wearing.
They’re the Jordan Airis of sneakers. ***Speaking of appropriation, I want to send love and light to my fellow Trophy and Soccer Moms out there, building careers, supporting spouses AND kiddos, hustling at what is still very much a boy’s club of an industry. Girl Boss ain’t got shit on you.I see you. ***This is a living document and will be updated frequently. As one does.
Last updated: 9/13/2023.
