The Grown Up Guide To Dressing Cute

Many question the growing number of young women who are opting out of maturing into the "respectable" (read: conventional) 20-30 year-old dress code and instead are choosing to revert back to trends and looks that were fashionable before they had even reached puberty. This new craze has left people wondering what the hell they’re doing and if such dressers are immature or attention seeking. Why would an adult woman choose to present herself in such an infantile way?

One argument in the case for girliness is that millennials have witnessed pop culture reach the pinnacle of sexy first hand on our screens, because sexuality in the media has gone as far as it can go. When we were growing up it was Christina Aguilera's Stripped and Madonna and Britney kissing at the VMAS; more recently we've seen Rihanna and Miley Cyrus fighting to show more flesh on stage. How much more could we bring sexy back before it became unsexy?

Personally, I think those opting for a cute dress code took all that sexiness they have been exposed to and flipped it on its head and said, 'Ok, we can’t get any more naked so let's not; let's cover up and go back to a time before sex existed; let's be cute!'

Cultural movements come about when a generation of people are exposed to the same things and somehow through a stream of collective unconsciousness, we've created this new look. Last year we saw the cute thing begin trending in different ways, as the kids of Instagram, such as Charlie Barker and Candy Ken showed us Hello Kitty and 50 Shades of Pink. The music world reacted too, with people like SOPHIE, Hannah Diamond, QT and LIZ y2k creating a new sound that took elements of childhood and created a soundscape which could be described as the complete opposite of a sexy beat; the Guardian coined the genre 'cute’. Fashion also had its voice through designers such as Ryan LO, Ashley Williams, Moschino, Chanel, and Sophia Webster making cartoons, anime and all things girly a wearable trend.

I like to play around with my style and bring in elements of childhood, girliness and irony, and my work reflects these things too. I love to work alongside animators and interactive teams who can add entertainment, fun and fantasy to my ideas. It's not to everyone's taste but whether you love it or hate it, here is my guide to dressing cute.

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