What Is ‘Brat Summer’? The Charli XCX-Inspired Trend Is Taking Off

Have you heard? It is Kid summer.

This is according to English pop star Charli XCX, who recently released her sixth studio album Kid — as well as his devoted fans, who call themselves “the Angels.”

Have you noticed a proliferation of neon green? Baby t-shirts? Sporty sunglasses, especially in the city? It’s Kid summer.

After the angels adopted the following term the Kid The album will be released on June 7, but the “Boom Clap” singer, 31, helped clarify its meaning in an interview on the site BBC Sounds podcast.

“It can be like that, like luxury,” Charli said, responding to a question about whether a recent photo of the star on a speedboat was considered part of the trend. “But it can also be very trashy, like a pack of cigarettes, a BIC lighter and a white strappy top with no bra.”

On TikTok, fans scoured the new album’s lyrics for clues about the types of props involved in a Kid Summer: digital cameras, cropped t-shirts, anything that’s all about the flirtatious aesthetic.

But this is perhaps the most fundamental point for the look of a Kid Summer is an iconic shade of neon green, which Charli chose as the backdrop for her album cover in a controversial move earlier this summer. After an online backlash when she revealed the album cover, she responded to critics by questioning why fans feel so “proprietary of female artists” that they expect their image to be on an album cover.

Beyond accessories, reminiscent of 2000s fashion trends and indie sleaze, Kid Summer is a state of mind: being an “It” girl, but doing it effortlessly.

In the music video for the alternative pop star’s hit single “360” from KidIt stars past and present It girls, including Chloë Sevigny, Julia Fox, Gabbriette Bechtel, Rachel Sennott, Chloe Cherry, and Richie Shazam. The video even features internet sensation Emma Chamberlain, the queen of messy buns and oversized sweatshirts, who also interviews stars as a three-time Met Gala red carpet correspondent.

Charli herself has effortlessly embodied the It girl persona throughout her album campaign: At a Los Angeles show to promote the record, the star told the audience mid-song: “I don’t really want to sing this one. I just want you to sing this one while I drink some wine, okay?”

Even the album cover—a plain green background with a basic, blurry font spelling out the album’s name—gives a jaded feel to the record’s promotional cycle, as if Charli never took anything too seriously, and neither should you.

But Kid The summer was also defined by another key facet: unapologetic meanness. On the album, which she called her “most aggressive and confrontational record” in an interview with The faceCharli isn’t afraid to talk about those she has reservations about.

“I think I can be a bitch, but I don’t know if I am a bitch,” the singer said on The Bodybuilders early June. “I don’t think you become a bad feminist if you don’t agree with all women. This is simply not the nature of human beings. »

Throughout her song “Mean Girls,” Charli praises a little misbehavior: breaking her boyfriend’s heart and using her “razor-sharp tongue.” “I kind of miss the days when pop music was really volatile and crazy,” she said. The face“I miss the days of Paris Hilton. Everyone is so concerned about everything right now, about how they’re perceived, about whether their work will offend. »

In “Sympathy is a Knife,” she laments, “I don’t want to share space” because “this girl is exploiting my insecurities.” She later continues: “I don’t want to see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show / I’m crossing my fingers behind my back / I hope they break up soon.” (Some have speculated that the song was about former tourmate Taylor Swift or actress Chloe Bennet, as both have been linked to men in Charli’s fiancé George Daniel’s band, The 1975. )

But Kid Summer should also be a time to eliminate unnecessary conflict, like Charli and Lorde did when they released the remix of the much-discussed “Girl, so confusing.” Before the new version of the song, fans had speculated that the Kid The song — which is about Charli’s frustration at a friend’s failure to follow through on plans to collaborate musically or spend time together — was about Lorde, with a line that says they have “the same hair.”

But the pair “hit it off on the remix,” where Lorde admits she was intimidated by the English singer but always respected her as an artist. (“I’m riding for you, Charli,” the “Royals” singer declares at the end of her verse.)

So bring your neon green and some shade, because this is Kid summer.