February 01, 2024 | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT | By Charlotte Maley
Clean girl aesthetic has been terrorizing women’s social media feeds ever since its emergence in late 2021, when someone decided to put a name to the simple style worn by models such as Gigi Hadid and Hailey Bieber.
This style is typically characterized by the slicked-back bun, simple but expensive golden jewelry, no-makeup-makeup look and very basic but chic clothing. The clean girl aesthetic refers to a fashion method that is clear, not in its artistic virtue, but in its goal: by dressing to fit this standard, someone communicates that they possess the highest degree of purity and class.
The clean girl aesthetic touches upon a style of dress and personal grooming which is meant to advertise a certain inoffensive nature, one where they may quietly declare that they are not transgressive of feminine societal expectations, while being no more than a relaunch of how to properly communicate long established gender norms. It has survived as the most popular fashion trend amongst American women for such an incredible amount of time for this reason alone. That is, until now.
Recently, TikTok and Instagram influencers announced that the clean girl aesthetic is officially out and would be replaced with what content creators are calling the “mob wife aesthetic.” Instead of minimalism, popular media personalities are shouting to the high heavens that maximalism is in.
“We have all collectively decided that the clean girl aesthetic is out,” stated Jordan Underwood in a recent TikTok post. “And we’re going to replace it with the mob wife.” What, however, does this mean for the approaching fashion landscape and what implications will this have on the culture at large?
The mob wife, or mafia girl, refers to a woman that lives an extravagant life. Someone who has a big and sassy personality, but more than anything else, is okay with being a little transgressive. She is still hyper-feminine, of course, but in an entirely different manner than the clean girl aesthetic; hair isn’t perfectly placed, but wild and messy, clothing isn’t perfectly tailored, but large, bright and even a little trashy. Most importantly, make up is not hidden, but greatly exaggerated, where smokey eye makeup and red lipstick are a staple of any mob wife look.
“We’re doing messy hair… we’re doing big furs,” said Tik Tok influencer Mikayla in a recent video, “We want to be a mob boss wife because she is a boss in and of herself. She is unbothered. She has people to see. She doesn’t take anything from anyone.”
In this short video of hers explaining the mafia girl’s appeal, this content creator revealed the underlying motivation behind taking up this new look: women are sick of sitting quietly, and are ready to get a little unconventional.
What the mob wife is in comparison to the clean girl is an adult with far more power. Whereas the clean girl is supposed to be indicative of daddy’s money, the mob wife aims to communicate that she has married into money. The breed of husband-rich specific to the mob wife also alludes to something else that’s very potent, seeing as the mob boss makes his money from illegal activity. The connotation here is that the mob wife is the only person in the world who has true control over a very dangerous man, for she is supposedly the only person whom he desires in both body and soul and is also one of few people in society that is protected from mafia gangster violence due to Omerta codes of conduct.
The mob wife is not only uniquely untouchable in the criminal world, but she is coated in American cinematic stereotypes of Italian femininity, namely that they are proud, maternal, loud, talkative and passionate women. This renders her even more intimidating to people who are often uncomfortable with women who speak their mind. The mob wife, in theory, is much more willing to take up space, and in this way, she is an upgrade from the clean girl, who is beloved for her obedience.
However, this cultural mob wife shift can’t be seen just as progress. With many steps forward, society often takes a few steps back, and this fashion shift is no different. The mob wife, unlike the clean girl, is quite literally defined by her relationship to a man. Whereas the clean girl is only thinly veiled in patriarchal connotations. The mob wife is all too explicit in her intentions, for the character is a hyper-feminine housewife who exists for the purpose of pleasing and caring for a stressed-out felon husband.
In stark contrast, the clean girl aesthetic is most popular in big cities like Manhattan, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and is the slightly androgynous attire of choice for a high society but very young female worker. Whereas one fashion trend is an attempt to confine woman to one manner of appropriate style within a relatively new, but arguably progressive, societal position (that is, as a member of the white-collar working class). The other fashion trend is a romanticization of a rare but all together diminutive status, whose problematic nature is further emphasized by the fact that most Americans can only conceptualize the mob wife by what they’ve seen in TV shows like “The Sopranos.”
Both aesthetic choices are meant to confine women into highly specific forms which announce their compliance to feminine behavioral expectations. However, I do think that the mob wife is indicative of slight social progress in the collective feminist consciousness, for it alludes to an increasing aptitude and desire for unconformity and rebellion, even if it is in the most unevolved sense.