What is brat summer? The Charli XCX trend, explained

It’s 2024, and it seems we are all ready for a brat summer. The location? A grungy, sticky club, of course. The colour palette? A sickening lime green. That smell in the air? Probably Marlboro lights, chips and sweat.

Thanks to Charli XCX’s Brat album, all things pink and Barbiecore are so 2023. This is brat summer, and it is feral and green. The sleek clean girl is out, the messy internet It-girlie is in. She is everywhere. She is so Julia (Fox, duh). Listen, even Kamala Harris (yes, Vice President Kamala, the potential incumbent Democrat nominee) is living that life Von Dutch. (Her official campaign page on Twitter made her banner brat-coded, guys.)

What is brat summer?

What is brat summer — and, perhaps more importantly, why is brat summer?

Brat summer is an aesthetic and a way of life inspired by the Charli XCX album — you know, the one with the iconic lime green cover that is now absolutely everywhere? On one level, the album is the sonic equivalent of a grimy, sweaty dance floor. It is all deep beats and manic energy. But, as many critics have noted, all of this feral party girl energy is laced with a vaguely unsettling dose of millennial anxiety.

Instagram content

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

In Club Classics, she sings, “I wanna be flooded by the lights” and states that she’s “never gonna stop to the morning light.” But, of course, none of us can keep on numbing ourselves with the party forever (sorry). When the club shuts its doors, she finds herself caught in more melancholic self-reflection. She admits she’s “a mess and plays the role.” She says she’s “thinking about it all the time” — and yes, she’s talking about what so many of us are thinking about all the time, which is her baby timeline. Later, she states, “Sometimes, I just wanna rewind” in a song that evokes quintessential millennial nostalgia. Basically, she’s having an existential crisis while trying to numb it all with a feral party, and it’s oh so millennial.

Embrace brat summer — go on, we dare you

Brat may be laced with a touch of existential dread, but hey, aren’t we all? Brat summer just makes sense. And here’s how you can embrace it as the aesthetic and lifestyle it is.

Ultimately, it needs to be a little chaotic. As Charli herself said, “It can go that way, like, quite luxury, but it can also be so, like, trashy. Just, like, a pack of cigs, and, like, a Bic lighter, and, like, a strappy white top. With no bra. That’s, like, kind of all you need.”